Right after he graduated from JMU, Jeremy got a job with a large healthcare company in Virginia Beach. He was making good money and decided that he wanted to get an apartment near the facility to which he was assigned.

 He found a place just a few blocks from the Nursing Home and paid the deposit and the first month's rent on short term lease. It was a really nice place, two apartments shared a duplex. It was very clean and close enough to the facility that he thought he could walk or ride a bike to work.

 When the day came to move him into the place, we loaded up my pickup with all of his stuff and drove to the new apartment. We unloaded the truck, unpacked some boxes and in short order the place was livable. The last thing we did was to hook up his television and stereo. We just sat and rested for a while when we finished.

As nightfall landed, the quiet complex changed. Groups of teenagers loitered on the streets. The noise level grew exponentially. His next door neighbors that seemed very friendly and mature when we were unloading started playing some “Boom, Shuka, Lucka” crap on their stereo, ( the stuff with a very heavy bass beat that is somewhat like music except it lacks rhythm, melody, or harmony ) and they had it up full blast. The walls in Jeremy's apartment were shaking. I asked him if he was going to be able to stand listening to that shit on a regular basis. I was ready to have a seizure and my patience was wearing thin. As thin as Ron Popeil's Dial-O-Matic could slice a tomato. Ron said that you could "Slice a tomato so thin it only has one side."

 Jeremy told me to just relax that he could handle it. I asked him what he was going to do. He said

“I'll just crank up the Frank!” And, so he did. He put a Frank Sinatra CD in the stereo and turned it up to eleven! Blasting from the speakers:

I get no kick from champagne.
Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all.
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you?

In less than a minute, the “Boom, Shuka, Lucka” stopped completely and Jeremy turned Frank down to two. It worked because he did it his way.

He didn't stay there long as he was soon promoted and transferred to another property. He and the neighbors were friends from that day on.

In preparation for his career as a medical facility administrator, Jeremy did a paid internship at a hospital in Virginia Beach at the end of his Junior year in college. He worked in various departments throughout that summer. For a few weeks, he was assigned to the X ray department and performed a number of different tasks. He told us about being sent to the emergency room to collect a severed thumb and delivering it to the X-ray technician. He also served as a file clerk in that same X-ray department. He complained when he got home for the first couple of days saying it was boring and slow. After hauling around a severed thumb I guess putting X-rays on a shelf would seem that way.

 It all changed when a mad rush in the ER had them scurrying in the X-ray department. One of the ladies that worked there told Jeremy to quickly get some files and get them to the emergency room stat.

She said “Hurry up and take these to the ER nurse. Be quick. You know what they say “A stitch in time saves mines.” He rushed the items as directed. When he returned, he asked her to repeat the saying that she told him. Again she said “You know, a stitch in time saves mines.” Then she added “That's an old She-Clay.”  She shook her head and added, “That's a French word. I can't believe a college boy like you don't know that!”

 It stuck in the Schuchert vernacular from that day on. “A penny saved is a penny earned. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. One man's trash is another man's treasure. One man's cliche is another man's she-clay.”

There is a famous poem about the things that cancer cannot do. The author is unknown.

"What Cancer Cannot Do"

Cancer is so limited...
It cannot cripple love.
It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot corrode faith.
It cannot eat away peace.
It cannot destroy confidence.
It cannot kill friendship.
It cannot shut out memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot reduce eternal life.
It cannot quench the Spirit.

Jeremy added another to that list. Although it took away his strength and for awhile, his voice, it did not rob him of something that was quite important to him. His sense of humor. We found something to laugh about nearly every single day. We'd watch every celebrity roast on Comedy Central. We saw nearly episode of a crazy Japanese game show on YouTube called “Silent Library.”. This show can be a side-splitter if your taste in comedy is as edgy as ours. As I mentioned in his eulogy, he was a big Don Rickles fan so it should come as no surprise that his comedic flair had a bit of a twist to it.

 I know that I probably should not share this story, but I find it too funny and a perfect example of how Jeremy kept his wonderful sense of humor throughout this heinous ordeal not to.. Some of you will no doubt find it to be crude. Cancer is crude. And to those who are easily offended , I offer up the words of Sergeant Hulka “Lighten up Francis!”

 After a very harsh round of chemotherapy, Jeremy was very weak and basically bedridden for a brief time. During this time he had no choice but to use adult diapers and let things happen . He needed help with just about everything including clean up afterward and replacing the diaper.

 One day after helping Jeremy with this, Jack (his 2 year old son) came by to visit. After playing for a while, it became apparent that the baby had a mess in his diaper. I cleaned Jack up and put a new Huggies on him.

 Jeremy then asked me if I had been to the bathroom that day. “Hey Dad, did you drop a deuce today?”

I answered in the affirmative.

 After a pause for effect, Jeremy said “If we could get Grandma to come down here today and shit herself you could get in the Guinness Book of Records for most generations of asses wiped in one day.”

How many of us would be able to joke like this? Maybe crude, but funny and in a way, inspirational. Laughter is the best medicine.

Now let's wipe out Cancer.