Even as Rich Goade faced death after a seven-year battle with cancer, he
wasn’t thinking about his own pain and difficulties. He was one to reach out to
others and to express gratitude for what he had.
“Even the day that he died, he was still asking people how their day was,”
said Rich’s wife, Amy Goade, in an interview with Deseret News. “He was always
asking them how they were doing, what their plans were, and he was dying.”
In April 2006, Rich was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. Doctors gave
him the probability of living two to five more years, but he outlived their
predictions and lived seven more years. Rich died on May 2, 2013, his 41
birthday.
But during the Goade family's fight with cancer, Rich, Amy and their three
daughters chose to be positive and show thanks as he worked through cancer
treatments, which helped carry them through the challenges they faced.
“Everybody has trials. Everybody has tragedies,” Amy said. “That’s why we
come to this earth, and we came to a place where we realized we weren’t being
picked on, that this was just the deal. … And so we found something that worked
for us, and that was to count our blessings and to notice what was good. … It
helped us be able to enjoy each other instead of being weighed down by all the
fear, it helped lift us up.”
Two years after Rich's diagnosis, the Goade family moved from Washington to
Lehi, Utah. In facing the challenges that accompanied cancer, the family worked
at expressing gratitude for blessings.
“I remember when he first was diagnosed, we had a month, I will never forget,
it was a very dark month where we just felt like our whole world was coming down
around us and all our future plans were done,” Amy said. “And I remember
praying, and we both felt like we came to a place where we needed to get to
work. You know that it was just kind of like, this isn’t helping anything … it’s
not helping our family be strong, it’s only hurting us, and so we made a
conscious decision that we were just going to go to work.”
A designer by profession, Rich worked for numerous companies, including
Starbucks, Apple, Microsoft and FamilySearch. On the side, he and his brothers,
Jerry and Paul, created an app called “
thankful,” which allows users to record, store and share what
they are thankful for.
According to the app’s description online, “Numerous studies
have linked counting one’s blessings to healthy and improved mental and physical
health.”
Over time, family and friends who supported Rich through his struggles with
cancer acquired the name “
Team Goade.” The group showed support by including the hashtag
#thankful in its social media use.
“We use the hashtag #thankful a lot every time that we say we’re thankful
for,” Amy said. “It’s been fun to see that kind of branching out. We’ve been
seeing it places where people we don’t know are using it too, and I don’t know
if it had anything to do with us, but it’s been fun to see. … Maybe it could
spread from there and really help people be thankful for what is good in the
world.”
Rich joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was
18-years-old. He was quick to turn to the scriptures to find comfort during his
suffering, and his faith helped give him and his friends and family
perspective.
“I remember Rich, he was really struggling, and he decided he was going to
read his scriptures just front to back,” Amy said. “And he just, for a couple of
weeks just read scriptures front to back, and that was a tool that he used over
and over again. When things would get hard, he would start reading his
scriptures like crazy, and that would just give him peace. … We have all this
bad that’s all we can see, all this hard stuff that we can see, but there’s all
this good stuff, too. And over the course of seven years, Heavenly Father really
made it clear to us that there was a lot of good.”
Amy is thankful to have learned the importance of gratitude and “looking
up.”
“September especially was really, really hard for me. And it was hard because
I forgot to be thankful, and I didn’t even realize it until a month had gone by
that … looking back I realized that I had been getting all these blessings, but
I hadn’t even noticed. I didn’t lift my head up to look for them. But as soon as
I started looking for the blessings, I stopped being so sad.”
Although Rich is missed by many, the attitude of gratitude he employed
continues to bless those who regularly use it.
“I used to think that fighting cancer and watching Rich suffer so much was
the hardest thing I would ever have to do, but I have to say that living without
him has proven to be harder,” Amy said. “To say that I miss him doesn't begin to
explain my feelings. We were high school sweethearts. We were married for more
than 20 years. We fought cancer together for seven years. He was my best friend,
my confidant, my sweetheart, my comedic relief. He made life fun. I have to
fight daily to not let my grief take over.
“The blessing is that I have learned that choosing to look up and be thankful
for the joy that surrounds me allows me to balance that grief with joy. It's
been a common theme throughout our family's fight with cancer. We have learned
that faith always conquers fear. That darkness always gives way to light. I know
that to be true, and if I remember to open my eyes, lift up my head and notice,
there is light all around me.” I found the article
HERE:
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Making memories with Amy!
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