CRANSTON — Affixed to the side of Max Gold Dwares’ gravestone is a small blue slate tablet with an etching depicting perhaps the greatest leap of faith the then-18-year old ever took.
It had long been a dream of Max to go skydiving, according to his father, Kevin Dwares, who recounted how his son had told him it would be a way for him to get closer to God.
Keeping a promise he had made to his son one year earlier, the day after Max underwent a bone marrow transplant at the New England Medical Center in Boston in an effort to cure him of chronic myelogenous leukemia, Kevin drove his son North Central Airport in Lincoln so that he could fulfill his son’s dream.
“Max and I went into the office to sign up for a jump from a perfectly good airplane,” Kevin smiled as he recalled that calm day with a beautiful blue sky.
Both he and Max laughed out loud as they filled out the eight-page waiver form, but then the tone turned a bit more serious. With Max’s mother Barbara, and his brother Jacob away for the week that summer visiting family friends in Florida, father and son were on their own for this adventure, one both were hesitant to call mom in advance for her blessing, knowing what her answer would be.
“Dad, if anything happens to us, mom will kill us, so we’d better land safely,” Max implored his father.
Each in tandem with an experienced instructor, Max and his father leapt into the unknown from 13,000 feet up.
“I could not see much but silently said a prayer to God to take care of Max and deliver him from all the pain he was in. I hoped that God was listening,” Kevin said.
Although Kevin was the last to jump, he was the first to land, his son’s lighter weight allowing him to float “like an angel” to the ground.
He would later tell his father that although he loved the thrill, he was scared to death and was thankful to be closer to God, whom he worshipped devoutly in his Jewish faith, for a brief few moments.
Kevin chose this moment from his son’s brief life — Max would succumb to his illness from complications related to the transplant 18 months later, at the age of 20 — to serve as the cover photo for a book chronicling Max’s journey in dealing with his illness. He recently had the slate reproduction of the book’s cover attached to his son’s gravestone as a tribute to him.
“The book was in the initial stages by Max,” his father said, displaying in an interview with Rhode Island Catholic some of the many detailed notes his son had kept since his initial diagnosis on March 8, 2001.
“Max asked me to continue his book shortly before he passed away as a tribute to everyone left behind, but more importantly, as a reminder that while disease can be brutal and take lives, a positive attitude and faith can take you forward.”
It was difficult and painful to do at times, but late last year Kevin finally brought his son’s book to fruition. He noted that it was the prodding of his four-year-old granddaughter Maya, Jake’s daughter whom he named after his brother Max, which motivated him to go through those boxes and finish writing the book.
“Papa, finish the book,” she told him.
He said that “Live to the Max: The Max Gold Dwares story about faith and belief in God and mankind while battling leukemia,” was written not to simply memorialize a young man who died, but to celebrate his accomplishments with the goal of hopefully guiding others embarking on the same dark journey.
“My goal was to complete my son’s journey.”
Although he was born in the Jewish faith, Max believed that everyone is created equal in the eyes of God and lived his life accordingly. He dreamed of becoming a rabbi or a teacher, and worked toward his goal as a resident student at the University of Rhode Island until his condition began to worsen.
Published by Christian Faith Publishing, the book recounts the family’s interactions with doctors, rabbis, bone marrow donors and each other as they struggle to make sense of the immense challenges that have befallen them and save Max from the dreaded Graft vs. Host disease which ultimately claimed his life following his bone marrow transplant.
The book features many tender and humorous father and son moments spent between Kevin and Max such as times they enjoyed meals together in restaurants in and around their native Cranston.
In one instance, Kevin has his head shaved at Sam’s Barbershop in Cranston in a show of solidarity with Max, who had lost his hair following chemotherapy.
“You look like Curly from the Three Stooges,” Max said as his father entered the room, appreciative of the gesture.
The book also recounts more trying times during his son’s treatment.
Kevin recalls how upset he had become to see the debilitating impact that chemotherapy had begun to have on Max.
“He asked me for a hug and a kiss, and after four weeks of all the pain, suffering and heavy medication, he hugged me tightly, began to weep and told me he couldn’t take the pain anymore,” he wrote. “We held each other tightly, and after a few minutes, he simply said that faith in God will get him through and that he would be okay.”
In another instance, back at home, Max was crying as he called his father to pick him up after only 10 minutes at a church service in which he was to serve as the best man at a friend’s wedding because he suddenly felt very sick from his treatment.
Kevin said he began at this time to take a different viewpoint of life itself and would think about how people would get sick and why God would let bad things happen to good people.
He then came to the conclusion that God doesn’t give people diseases and make people sick, rather, God helps doctors find cures for diseases and gives free will to mankind to make the right choices.
Kevin said the book taught him much about self-reflection.
“Life throws you curveballs, it’s how you hit them that matters,” he has learned from his family’s difficult experience.
Longtime family friend Sister Deborah Cerullo SSND, a Rhode Island native and attorney who is currently serving as the provincial councilor for the School Sisters of Notre Dame’s Atlantic-Midwest Province in Baltimore, said she is encouraged by Kevin and Barbara Dwares’ strength in the face of the ultimate adversity.
“They are very strong, a very impressive couple. I’m struck by their utter confidence in eternal life and in God,” she said.
She said that she can’t imagine how, even after the passage of 14 years from the time of his son’s death that Kevin was able to sit down and complete this book given how much the family endured in trying to save Max’s life.
Sister Cerullo also spoke of the Dwares’ continued devotion to service as a way of keeping Max’s memory and spirit on earth alive.
“They sponsor a yearly service project in memory of Max and to be of service to others. That was so important to him,” she said.
Kevin said it was Max who taught him how to be more compassionate to those in need, a lesson learned during a trip the family took to the Boston Children’s Museum when Max was four years old.
Approached by a panhandler begging for money, Max asked his father who he was. When his father replied that it was someone who didn’t want to work and wanted others to support them, he was corrected by Max who said that the person must have a mommy and a daddy and looked hungry so he should give him five dollars.
“I said ‘Okay,’ and gave him the money when he replied, ‘God bless you and your son,’” Kevin said. “That was one of the earliest times Max’s charitable nature would shine, and it would continue throughout his life.”
Max would help out at Trevor’s Place for the homeless, making sandwiches for Traveler’s Aid and contribute toward many fundraisers and charitable organizations until he died, something Kevin and Barbara Dwares continue to do regularly.
“When he felt others needed help, he would organize friends and relatives and get going,” Kevin noted in the book. “He served to help those less fortunate and I have learned from my son and continue to make the world a better place to live, and this is Max’s legacy.”
“Live to the Max,” is available online at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com The cost is $18 and all proceeds will be donated to the Tomorrow Fund for children battling cancer at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence (www.tomorrowfund.org), and the National Foundation for Transplants (www.transplants.org).
