Paul Serwinek, Ph.D., and Marlene Serwinek

It was a shock. It was a real shock. And it took a while for us to realize—for me—to realize that I might lose him. We tried everything. And I think this is the thing that allows me to look back and not feel anger—we tried everything. We went to various hospitals, various doctors. We went to nutritionists. We went to alternative medicine. Money was no object to us. So, if someone said, “Well, this person helped my daughter with cancer,” we went to that person. We put him through multiple tests. And so when it finally came to the point when we realized he was not going to make it, we could look at things and say, “We tried. We tried all we could.” 

And, like Marlene was saying, we were able to connect with our son. We knew that he knew that we loved him, and that we cared about him, and to me that was the most important thing that I could communicate. He knew that we would do anything for him, and that helped us through what was going on. But we kept trying, and we kept trying. 

As we look back, we can see that there were many positives about what actually happened. I think the most wonderful thing is that I learned from Matt how to die. I learned how to die from him because he was positive through it all. He woke up every day with a smile on his face no matter what he was going through. And he was calm about it. Afterwards, I said, “I hope I can be like him in the end.” He gave me so much from his experience. And I’m so thankful to him for that.

Our life had been going pretty smooth, and God had saved Paul’s life through the transplant. So, when Matt came down with leukemia, I almost went into denial. 

I thought God was going to pull him through. God would help us with this. We’d find doctors. We’d find the right medicine and stuff. He found out in October of 2018, and he was gone by October of 2019. So it was within a year—which sounds like a long time. It wasn’t. We were going from doctor to doctor and this and that. And it finally hit me, towards the end, after he had started a second course of chemotherapy. 

One day when I was with him at the chemo clinic, he was lying there and he just looked at me and he said, “Mom, I have to talk to you.” 

I said, “OK.” 

And he said, “I just...I can’t do this anymore.” He told me he couldn’t take the chemo. He said, “The chemo is killing me.” 

We knew it had weakened his heart. 

Then he said, “You know, I just want to stop this. I just want to stop it and we have to accept it.” 

That was very hard. And I felt very bitter for a while. I did. I was angry at God. “How could you do this? He’s a nice guy, you know? Never hurt anybody.” Then he died, and I wanted to be brave and strong for my family, but I was bitter. Honestly, I'd admitted that to God. 

Afterwards, we had many, many conversations. I began to realize that the one solid year that Matt had survived was probably one of the most beautiful experiences that I’ve had. Matt had been off on his own and he had his own life. Well, he was forced to move back with us because he was so weak. He couldn’t go to the doctor. He could barely go upstairs. So we had to take care of him, which I looked at as a gift because I loved taking care of him. He never lost his appetite. I cooked his favorite foods. We would watch “Jeopardy” every night. We would talk. We talked and talked. Nothing was left unsaid. No unfinished business. So, I look at that as a beautiful gift.