During the last weeks of his life, 10-year-old Jared Carlos Lujan and his family treated his impending death akin to the way other families might prepare for indefinitely long trips to an unfamiliar country.
“We have all eternity to spend together,” he told his family in February, after learning that his cancer, an especially aggressive form of acute myelogenous leukemia, was resisting treatment. He died Tuesday at his Roxborough home.
Planning the music for his final celebration of life, he chose songs from Christian bands including the Newsboys and Chris Rice, along with “Go the Distance,” a song from the Disney movie “Hercules.” It became a soundtrack throughout his treatment. He especially liked these lyrics:
“Down an unknown road/ To embrace my fate/ Though the road may wander/ It will lead me to you/ And a thousand years/ Would be worth the wait/ It may take a lifetime/ But somehow I’ll see it through.”
The words carried him through chemotherapy, recovery and his decision to stop everything but palliative therapy.
“That song had so many meanings for us,” said his mother, Angela Lujan. “First, it had the promise of being normal again after the chemo and operations. And finally, it was about going home to God.”
Slender, with flushed pink cheeks and dark hair, Jared wore a GodStrong plastic band on his wrist, a version of Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong band. He cherished a T-shirt printed “Vote for Jesus,” a Christian spin on the “Vote for Pedro” campaign featured in the film “Napoleon Dynamite,” whose script Jared could quote from memory.
“The whole family has a very strong faith, and that’s really grounded them in getting through a terrible, terrible time,” said oncologist Sue Lindemulder, who worked with the Lujans since Jared’s initial diagnosis on Aug. 11, 2003.
“Jared was aware he was dying. With Jared, we’ve been upfront. He’s too smart to get anything past him; you can’t even try. His parents have prepared him for everything in life, and they feel like they’ve helped prepare him for this. They don’t want him to be afraid, and I don’t think he is.”
From infancy, Jared struck people as precocious. He began talking as soon as he took his first steps, amassing an impressive vocabulary. At age 2, when someone told him to “look at the birdie” in the sky, Jared responded, “Actually, that’s an eagle.”
Before his first chemotherapy session, he shaved his head save for a mohawk and mustered a sneer for a pre-chemo photo.
“He didn’t let the disease interfere with his childhood,” said oncologist Brian Greffe.
“At the same time, he was wise beyond his years. Most kids his age want us to talk to their parents. Jared really wanted to hear what was being said, even when we realized the leukemia was relapsing, and he did not have good options.”
Yet Jared remained firmly a fifth-grade boy. He loved baseball and football. Before his diagnosis, he was among the top tacklers for the Arapahoe Youth League’s Warriors.
He cherished his two authentic light-saber replicas, souvenirs scored at his Make-A-Wish Foundation “Star Wars” party at Fat City in November, before his final, unsuccessful chemo sessions.
Because Jared loved costumes, everyone at the party adopted a “Star Wars” persona. Jared was a young Anakin Skywalker. His big brother, Mathew, went as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and baby brother Daniel made an infantile, unwrinkled Yoda.
“It was a chance for Jared to do all the things he hadn’t gotten to do before because of the chemotherapy and the operations and the bone marrow transplant,” Angela Lujan said. She calculated that her son spent 190 days at Children’s Hospital in 2005.
Jared relished playing a Jedi knight. The romance of knighthood appealed to him throughout his life. He cast a 2004 story he wrote, “Battle of Brothers,” as a medieval tale of betrayal and fealty that echoed his own life.
Here’s how it ended:
“King Mathew rushed to his brother’s side.
“‘Goodbye,’ whispered Sir Nantrop. Then he died.
“King Mathew cried and cried. After he was buried, King Mathew looked over his castle and remembered when he, Sir Nantrop and Lendul all played together when they were kids, before their father, King Richard, and their mother, Queen Angela, were killed by robbers, and his entire family was happy.”
Survivors include parents Rich ard and Angela Lujan of Roxborough; brothers Mathew Lujan and Daniel Lujan of Roxborough; and grandparents Don Yerion of Mount Vernon, Wash., Patricia Owen of Delta and Mary and Ernest Lujan of Las Cruces, N.M.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
