Good Morning Team Zachary,

From Randy Travis....

... and I loved him and he loved me
and Lord how I cried the day he died
'cause I thought that he walked on water.

On May 4, 2008 at 6:33 pm Zachary took his last breath.

Funeral arrangements will be in the next Team Zachary letter. They are being decided right now.

I don't have the final totals yet from Zachary's request to help him help others because the contributions keep coming in!! BUT we will be around $125,000 which is pretty darn wonderful.

What follows is a letter Zachary's father wrote:

May 4, 2008

Dear Zachary,

In the depth of life I do not know how we are all connected, now and always, but I know we are. In the depth of life, I do not know how those with whom we have shared a special bond or an abiding love are somehow forever bound by the One Love that binds us all but I know this is true.

Sometime in the next few hours you will be finished with the physical body that has served you these past 26 years. Since you were a little boy I have written you a birthday letter reflecting on your life and the events of the past year. Today also seems to be a special day deserving a letter and I seem to have some time available here in the waiting room.

This morning Dara gave her consent to remove the ventilator and other tubes and machines that have been prolonging your physical torment in the body that now can do almost nothing on its own. As I left your room, knowing that today would likely be your last, my cell phone beeped. As you know, I have never learned to work this thing very well. Nonetheless, I had earlier been successful in saving, at least temporarily, the last Voicemail message you left for me on March 30th. Sure enough, it was you ringing back to leave me a clear-throated message about your jeep and our plans to deliver it to you in Omaha during your recovery from the recent Stem Cell Transplant. You ended, as always, with "I love you." I'm certain one of my geek friends can explain to me why my cell phone beeped me at that moment 5 weeks later, however, I believe there is probably a deeper explanation that none of us, except perhaps you, really understand.

I am sitting here in the 7th floor lobby attempting to grasp our new relationship and all of the work we have to do together. Soon the grafting will be complete. Of course I am not referring to the second Stem Cell Transplant which was 100% successful in grafting with the donor cells. I am referring to something far more important than biology. The courage and compassion, the zeal for the profound and the promotion of that depth which has characterized your life is now being grafted into my heart and the depth of my being.

You have become my Great Teacher these past two years. I have been privileged to be your willing student.

Now you and I are sharing a transplant procedure that the doctors do not know about - and, this is one you will survive now and forever. The essence of what Charles Lingo has named 'Zacharyness' is now being grafted deep into my being and the hearts and being of all those who love you or have been loved by you. It is this grafting that is forming the basis of our new team as your essence fills this heart and mind and body that we both will now occupy.

There is a lot of work for the two of us to do.

I have so appreciated the countless overnight sleepovers we have shared in various hospital rooms these past two years. Through those interactions we have bonded more deeply than ever. How many fathers get the opportunity to have so many late night and middle-of-the-night conversations and interactions with their 26-year-old children?

I was privileged a few minutes ago to share your hospital room with a compassionate entourage of Dr. Julie Vose, Hayden the P.A., Stephanie (our favorite nurse), the nursing coordinator, a Pulmonologist, your mother and Dara as the tube was removed from your throat and the ventilator support was completed. The medical group left to allow Dara, your mother and me to spend the next 30 minutes together by your bedside. I appreciated the opportunity to rest my hand on your chest above your heart and to allow the Zacharyness Grafting to further complete its process. I have now returned to the hall outside your room as your mother and I have given you some special time with Dara.

Over the past 2 years I have been a close witness to the unspeakable tortures inflicted upon your body in the search for a cure to your cancer. I have watched every single part of your body poked, prodded, stuck, cut, infused, measured, taken from, added to and tormented in ways that outside of this medical institution would be grounds for countless felonies. I am grateful this will soon be over. Watching your prolonged physical suffering is not a practice I have yet learned to accommodate.

As my Teacher, you have delivered me to countless lessons that will continue to flourish in the new host environment. You are a vital donor. My guess is that you will inhabit some other hosts besides me. While there may be some Graph Versus Host rebellion, I promise you that the Donor contributions will be victorious. Among the many and yet undiscovered contributions you have made to me, the following select elements are worthy of note in this communication:

Above all of the rest, 'compassion' is finding its way deep into my new heart. I am learning from you to transform all suffering, mine and others, into compassion that is centered in the greater heart of life itself.

This death sentence at age 26 has allowed you to deliver many of us, once again, to find our true home in the shadow of Reality from which we often make every effort to avoid, deny, evade and escape. Death is real. Contingency is real. Finiteness is real. This journey of being a human being really does have an end. Our humanness in the present tense is only compromised when we accept any of the popular and seductive illusions to the contrary. This Reality is the truth of life we can encounter only in the radical Now. You have shaken many of us from our comfortable slumber in the middle of our real lives. This truth has many blessings including 'wakefulness,' 'intensity,' and 'depth.'

You have invited us to release our tolerance for living life on the surface and all its accompanying mental and emotional turbulence and drama. You have invited us to join you in the stillness of the unchanging deeps. I look forward to staying connected with you in the 'authenticity' and 'authority' this shadow casts in the blessed Light of Reality. There is nothing else coming. This is it. Seize this moment. Seize life. Thank you Zachary!

Your example has led me to grasp 'deep seeing.' From this day forward I will seek to see always beyond appearances; in all things observing only the activity of the One Presence and One Power which is only good and only love.

Further, this encounter with death, and most personally 'my death' leaves me in a state of awe and awareness of the Mysterious and Inescapable Presence that has always surrounded my life and all of life but I have often ignored. I now see this Presence everywhere and in everything. You have returned me to the truth of 'wonder' and 'awe.'

'Gratitude' for every moment and every activity and every encounter is one of the richest of gifts you have shared in abundance. As I now listen to your last labored breaths, I pledge to value each inhalation and each exhalation of my life with new 'mindfulness.' You have taught me to appreciate the simple joys that have often been denied you through this journey: the ability to sit up, to stand, to roll over in bed, to get out of bed, to take a shower, to exercise one's bodily functions without assistance, to brush one's teeth and to have an hour without pain as one's primary focus. Having watched you fast of food and water for most of the last two months, I intend to release any nonchalance toward each bite or each sip that passes my lips. You have so delighted in the opportunity once a day to clean your teeth with the pink hospital foam on a plastic stick because it was the only flavor you would experience in a 24 hour period. Through all of your adversity 'gratitude' was the resounding posture you demonstrated. As I sit here in the hall, nurse after nurse comes up to me to share how you would always thank them after they gave you a shot.

Your ability to perpetually thank and lift up every nurse, doctor, and medical tech that walked into your room is now legendary on the 7th Floor of University Tower. Your Gratitude has already grafted successfully into many hearts besides mine. Two different immigrants from Africa who served you as Medical Techs both came in on their day off to be with you when they learned you had been placed on the ventilator. You have permanently infected many with your posture of 'gratitude,' 'joy,' and 'appreciation.'

'Courage' is the final element I will reference in this message. This is a hard one for me. I've never had much of whatever it is. As deficient as I may be in this area and as challenging as this transplant may become, you have demonstrated so much courage to me the past two years that I know to resist personal growth from your example will be futile. I can already feel some enhanced ability to gaze with trust into the dark abyss and absurdity of life with the deep love and compassion through which authentic courage is discovered.

Stephanie, one of the most composed nurses I have watched function in the heat of many traumatic situations this past year emerged from your room at 6:33p this evening trying unsuccessfully to keep from sobbing. I held her as she told me that she was supposed to be comforting me. While your mother and I sat outside your door, she and Dara were by your side for the last breath. You always preferred to have beautiful young women around you. Maybe I did teach you something of value.

I love you,

Dad