In the end, a whisper, a prayer

As the sun's warmth reaches deep into the earth, stirring the season of rebirth, the fields that surround the farmhouse in which he lived his final days await the plow, and Chuck Snook is at rest.

"Ya kind of die like going downstairs," he said a couple of months before he died last Sunday. "It comes in steps."

And for him it did, first in little steps, hardly noticeable; then in big ones, bounding ever downward day by day.

It's hard to tell how long Chuck had prostate cancer before it was diagnosed on Nov. 10, 1994. By then it had spread to his spine and his ribs, and the physician told him it was terminal.

"There was no frustration. There was no anger," he later said about that time. "There was total acceptance right from day one."

Chuck decided at the beginning that he would continue to live as he had, conceding to his illness only that which he had to concede. Because he could not be cured, he reasoned, he would at least live the best quality of life possible for as long as he could.

Three years and four months later to the day he made his final public appearance, this time on a Pontiac radio show. He and the announcer joked about Chuck being a celebrity because of the feature stories that appeared in The Pantagraph about him and his life with prostate cancer. But Chuck, along with Gretchen Stinebaugh, the OSF St. James Hospice chaplain from Pontiac, were more interested in promoting the joys of hospice care for the terminally ill. Chuck's voice was weak, but his message was strong, and he kept it up for the whole half hour of the show.

Even a person with a terminal illness can live a happy and productive life, Chuck said, and when the time comes, get into a hospice program.

That was 19 days before he died, and the timing was perfect--even a few days later Chuck would not have had the strength or stamina to maintain a half-hour conversation.

He was an educator, first a teacher, and then a school administrator. He retired last year as principal of Flanagan High School, but he never really quit trying to teach. It was what he tried to do by being so open about his illness, by talking to clubs and organizations, by being interviewed for the newspaper, by being on the radio.

But in the end, it seemed, he simply wanted to be with those he loved and who loved him.

Chuck always had a book at his side, often two or more, and he remembered what a professor of his once said: "My greatest friends are the friends in these books." But Chuck didn't quite believe it. He loved his books and he loved reading, but he often said that his greatest friends were his friends, people, those who visited him or called on the telephone; his wife, Eve; his children; his hospice team; and all those people who sent him cards and letters.

"I feel if it could end tonight," he said, "that'd be fine. ... I'm ready for this to end." But it didn't and he was left a few more days and nights to wonder and take what little comfort he could in the simple presence of his friends.

"It's just important that I have people around me," he said. "When that happens, I just feel good."

As late as a week before he died, Chuck was still able to take a friend by his hand, say he loved him, and ask that he pray for him. He seemed to be saying his farewells.

By then he was into and out of, mostly into, that fitful, final slumber. He seldom opened his eyes, and when he did, he didn't focus. His speech was gone, but he could usually make it known what he needed: water, a swab, Eve. Often, near the end, he would cry out for her, and she or Fran Lonergan, a good friend who had come to stay with him and Eve, or whoever was there for a visit, would hold his hand and caress his shoulder or his chest or a cheek.

Nobody knew for sure, but a simple touch seemed to bring him comfort.

When he was unable to swallow, he took morphine via dissolvable pill on the tongue or anally. His breathing came in starts and stops, and his heart seemed to flutter as it beat. By the end, Chuck had quit eating altogether. He had long ago signed papers indicating he did not want to be kept alive by machines of any sort.

"The body is just shutting down the systems," said Larry Stalter, Chuck's physician. "The various organ systems are just not able to do their job."

Cancer had spread throughout his bones, taking whatever nourishment it could, and his marrow no longer supplied him with new blood to sustain his lungs, his kidneys, his brain and his heart.

And in that way the body that contained Chuck Snook died.

A Plan to the End

What seems like a long time ago, Chuck Snook announced the rules for how he would live with his terminal illness. Then he decided what would happen after he died.

That's the type of take-charge guy he was.

He decided his cancer would not "bring me under at all."

He then decided what he wanted at his wake and memorial service.

And he got most of what he wanted.

In the end, cancer did bring him under, but he lived a fairly normal, pretty happy life until only a few days before he died.

For his wake, he said, he didn't want any somber affair with a long receiving line wherein his family would have to stand for hours greeting those who came to pay their respects. Instead, he wanted a reception, with jazz playing in the background and people visiting and remembering Chuck and how important they were to him. He wanted lots of pictures of his family and friends.

He sure didn't want to be displayed for all to see in an open coffin: He wanted to be cremated and his ashes stored in a walnut box designed and built by a friend from Cordova, where he and Eve once lived and still own a house.

At the funeral he wanted some of his poetry read and he wanted somebody to play "You'll Never Walk Alone" and "No Man Is an Island."

About the only thing that did happen that he didn't want was that line. But it was inevitable because Eva Kay (it's what Chuck called his wife) was there in the St. John's Lutheran parish hall Tuesday night, their friends wanted to offer their condolences, and so they lined up to do it. The first they passed, though, a few displays of flowers, amid which sat Chuck's box and his nameplate reading Dr. Charles E. Snook on one side and Dr. Skip on the other. Skip was Chuck's nickname. They passed a display of Pantagraph stories featuring Chuck's last year of life.

They passed a table of memorabilia: a baseball autographed by the Flanagan High School team of 1997, his last year as principal of the school; a football from the FHS team; a plaque honoring Chuck for restarting the Mid-State Conference music festival, now named after him; 1974 and '75 yearbooks from Prophetstown, early in Chuck's teaching career; a photograph of Chuck as a college wrestler; and a copy of "A Comparative Study of the Teachers' Perceived Value to the School System as a Factor in Evaluating the Principals' Leadership Behavior in 1976 and 1982." It was the dissertation with which Chuck earned his PhD.

Finally they passed a huge panel of pictures showing Chuck the boy and Chuck the grandfather, and practically everybody and everything in between.

Over in a corner of the hall, Jim Morstadt, the high school band director, had set up his tape and CD decks and his speakers to provide a background of the music Chuck loved best--jazz.

Chuck liked to hang around the band room, Jim said, and play the drums whenever he could. If he had another life on earth, he said, he wanted to come back as a chef during the day and a jazz drummer at night.

For sure, he got his wish for jazz at the wake: Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Connick Jr., Dave Grusin, Benny Goodman, Count Basie. "Duke Ellington," the band man said, "was probably one of his top three favorites.

Wednesday, with Chuck's box sitting amid the flowers at the center of the church altar, Gretchen Stinebaugh, the OSF St. James Hospice chaplain, read a few appropriate passages from the Bible, including "The Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces," then the Flanagan High School choir sang "You'll Never Walk Alone," putting those tears back on a few faces and granting their former principal another of his funeral wishes.

Keith Anderson, a friend and associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Pontiac, told a story from Chuck's childhood. He was about 4, Anderson said, and he managed to make his way to the manger of a living nativity scene at a church only to discover that the baby Jesus, unlike the others in the tableau, was a doll. Whereupon Chuck turned to the congregation and cried out: "It's not real!"

In later life, Anderson said, Chuck continued to speak the truth pretty much as he understood it.

Thomas Delk, St. John's pastor, praised Chuck because "not only in his living, but in his dying, he has made use of the tongue of a teacher that God has given him."

Chuck would have considered that indeed high praise, because although he loved his job as principal, he continued to long for the classroom, and he returned to it whenever he was invited. It was the place he called his stage for 22 years.

A few weeks ago, Chuck said he thought the end was near, that he didn't want anyone to worry about him and that he knew he was "going to a place that's going to take care of all of us."

Delk, too, touched on that theme: "Beyond the sorrow of separation," he said, "is the hope of reunion."

A reunion of sorts then followed.

Chuck's family and his friends and his co-workers from Flanagan from Port Byron and Prophetstown, and from New Lenox and Cordova gathered again in the parish hall for one last meal with the life and times of Chuck Snook fresh on their minds.

Chuck's box remained on the altar, amid the flowers, in the quiet sanctuary as his friends and family ate sandwiches and pie, and drank iced tea and lemonade and coffee. They joked and laughed and they remembered their glad times together in the past because this was a sad time. They hugged each other, they hugged Eva Kay and they hugged her children and her grandchildren. And in twos and threes they left with a new perspective on fond memories.

Chuck's widow then took Chuck's box home with her, to the farm house she and Chuck once shared southeast of Flanagan. She'll find a place for it, she said. It will stay with her there, and when she is ready to move on for yet another stage in her life, Chuck's box will come along.