Michael Olesker, The Examiner
2008-05-14 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

BALTIMORE -

She gets up each morning and thanks God for getting her family through another night. Faith conquers a lot. Then Salina Williams checks on her husband who’s had cancer, and her son who’s fighting cancer, and her granddaughter who has cancer. And she hopes to get through one more day before night arrives once more.

She is vice president of the Harford County school board and sees children in the great bloom of health all the time. They are God’s chosen, cavorting on the playgrounds, stretching their intellects in the classroom, full of the promise of many years to come.

Then Williams looks at her granddaughter, Talia, who is 4. The cancer first struck Talia when she was 17 months old. It is still here, and so is Talia. She’s at her parents’ home in Essex, on oxygen all the time. On Sunday, she sat up and watched a video. On Monday, she slept all day.

Williams’ son, Jerome Pleasant, has simultaneously fought cancer with Talia. His arrived right after his daughter’s. Bone cancer, it is. The doctors have had to remove three-quarters of his jaw.

And two years ago, Williams’ husband, Nathan, had pancreatic cancer.

“But they’re all here with me,” Williams was saying Tuesday. “I just thank the Lord for that.”

“You’re a woman of great faith?” she was asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “If it wasn’t for God, I don’t know where I’d be right now. I just keep believing every day. God doesn’t put on us any more than we can bear.”

“You don’t ask why?”

“Oh, of course you want to ask why. But God still has the last say. I hate the fact that Talia’s a child going through this. But God has reasons. My son, my husband — they’re still here. We thank the Lord for that. They’re still here with us.”

Each day becomes a celebration of survival. Over her long months of sickness, Talia has dreamed about visiting Disney World.

“When we found out the cancer was back in her lungs,” said Williams, “I put out the word.”

Money came in from friends and from friends of friends. A week ago, Talia went to Disney World.

“She saw Cinderella and dressed up in a castle,” said Williams. “She really wanted to see Cinderella, so we thank the Lord for that.”

But Disney World was a brief moment in an endless endurance test. Talia returned to Essex 10 days ago, and she’s been in and out of hospitals since then. She gets some of her treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital, but sometimes she has to go to the National Institute of Health in Washington.

“The cost of medicine,” said Williams, “is so much. But just the cost of gas to get to Washington and back, it’s so draining.”

Williams recently lost her job at Verizon during a company cutback. Her school board job is strictly voluntary, so Williams has put together a travel agency that she operates from their Aberdeen home. Her husband’s still working, but the security business isn’t big-time money. And her son works in the mortgage business, but he’s been unable to work through the bone cancer.

On May 24, friends will try to help raise money for some of the medical costs. They’ll hold a car wash at the Du Burns Arena parking lot, 1301 South Ellwood St. Baltimore police have lent their assistance, and so have local Boy Scouts.

“This is such a wonderful little girl,” said Melissa Techentin, president of the Southeastern District Police Community Relations Council, “and we just want to do anything we can to help the family. If I have to wash every car out there myself, we’re going to raise some money.”

In the meantime, Williams and her daughter-in-law Leda look after their family.

“Talia’s wonderful,” said Williams. “She knows she’s been sick. She’s been fighting this for so long, she can tell the nurses if they’re doing something wrong. If she has a new nurse, she’ll give her instructions. She knows she’s sick. She just doesn’t know the depth of it.”

But her son has had considerable reconstructive surgery on his jaw, and hopes to return to work. Her husband seems recovered. And Williams counts her blessings and continues her heavenly faith.

“One moment I’m crying, the next I’ve got it together,” she said.

She says she recently had shoulder surgery. But she mentions this strictly in passing.

“We just want to press on and say, Thank you, Lord,” she said. “We know a blessing is on the way.”