A One Year Remembrance for Jake Seliger: The Wheel of Time Stops When Your Adult Child Dies

My oldest son, Jake Seliger, lost his two-year battle with cancer on August 7, 2024 at age 40—a life well lived but only half lived. Jake was an accomplished writer and long-time colleague a Seliger + Associates, as well as a husband and post-mortem dad—his daughter Athena was born on the following October. Athena will only know her father through his writings and stories those who loved Jake will tell. In the years I have left, it is my job to help her understand something she will never truly know.

It is a truism that a child, no matter the age, preceding one in death is the greatest burden we humans must sometimes shoulder. To paraphrase Rabbi Hillel, the rest of life is mere commentary. But shoulder this I must. Still, for me the wheel of time stopped last August 7 and this essay is my way of attempting a jump-start.

When Jake was ten, the family was visiting friends in Park City, UT. Strolling downtown we came upon a small bookstore, and as is my wont, we went inside. I saw a copy of The Hobbit, which I had read as a teen along with Lord of the Rings and handed it to Jake. He was interested so I bought it, his first adult novel, for him. This set Jake on a path to becoming a big fan of Tolkien and other fantasy writers, including especially Robert Jordan’s  Wheel of Time  series (I called these collectively “dragon books”).

I read the first few WOT novels along with Jake starting with The Eye of the World. While the WOT books are not in the same literature class as LOTR, they were perfect for a pre-teen boy—clear good and evil themes and characters,  lots of action, magic, no overt sex, and, perhaps most importantly, there are many novels in the series. So, as Jake entered adolescence, he partially lived in the alternative  universe of Jordan. Like Tolkien, Jordan used the literary construct of passing ages to frame his narrative arc. This is very easily understood by a pre-teen like Jake, who was experiencing the rachet of time passing from childhood into adolescence.

As Jake and I read the WOT books, I would convene two-person seminars to discuss the novels to help him begin to understand literary criticism. We had many conversations about the WOT concept and its relationship to the LOTR version. As he grew up to enter high school, college, grad school, and the world of work, I’d sometimes remind him that his Wheel of Time was turning mostly for good but sometimes unfortunately for ill.

When Jake was a 21-year old junior at Clark University in Worcester, he discovered a bump on his skull and was diagnosed with a virulent form of bone cancer. A cancer diagnosis for a child, adolescent or young adult is very different than for us older folks—they still have the naiveite of immortality and life’s open road in front of them. Fortunately, Jake was successfully treated at Seattle Children’s Hospital, despite his being over 21, where the care team understood this difference.

During treatment, I’d often discuss the LOTR and the WOT books with Jake as he faced the reality that his wheel might stop. We both re-read LOTR during his nine months of chemo and surgeries. Miracles sometimes happen and at the end, his cancer was in remission. At his last meeting with his extraordinary oncologist, Doug Hawkins,  we presented the doc with a beautifully bound set of the LOTR books with this inscription: “Doctor Hawkins and your team were the Riders of Rohan in Jake’s personal Battle of Minas Tirith (Pelennor Fields).”

Jake was cancer free for about 18  years. Still, just like in Tolkien mythology, the Grey Havens loomed, and as in Jordan’s universe, the WOT was always poised to slip forward. In October 2022, the Grey Havens beckoned as the WOT moved when Jake was diagnosed with aggressive head and neck cancer. Unlike the first incidence of cancer, there was no established treatment protocol and he withstood many months of surgeries, chemo, radiation, and clinical trials to keep the tumors at bay.

But there were no Riders of Rohan this time. When the call of the Grey Havens grew strong and the WOT clicked, Jake lay down his burden—he had known, as we all had, that his prospect of recovery this time was very slight. Somehow, Jake, with the support of his wife Bess, herself an ER doc, moved through the daunting treatment gantlet maintaining a state of grace. I last saw him the day before the end. While he looked like a dying cancer patient, he had reached acceptance as we hugged for the last time.

Unlike Jake, I’ve not reached true acceptance and perhaps I never will. Although Jake chose to be cremated without a funeral, I followed the Jewish tradition of attending services and saying the Mourner’s Kaddish for 30 days.*

At the end of this period of mourning, one is supposed to look forward, as life is for the living. Or is it really? As each of us travels our road from dust to dust, we carry with us the memories of those we’ve loved who have left us. As I noted above, my WOT is stuck. Like many of us parents who’ve lost a child, I’m still torn between the need to move on with my life and the need to remember as much as I can about the wonder and meaning of Jake’s life. The former is, of course, necessary until my time comes, while the latter, being equally important to help Athena as she comes of age.

When Jake was first diagnosed with cancer many years ago, I took solace as I often do in music. Sting’s evocative song “Fields of Gold” provided some comfort. I often listened to Sting’s original version on headphones as I wrote, but grew to like Eve Cassidy’s melancholy cover better, perhaps because she later succumbed to cancer:

“I never made promises lightly

And there have been some that I’ve broken

But I swear in the days still left

We’ll walk in fields of gold

We’ll walk in fields of gold”

I hope to walk with Jake again in the fields of gold in a better place. May Jake’s memory be a blessing (זיכרונו לברכה).

* I also went to services to say Kaddish recently when his first Yahrzeit, which is the yearly anniversary of a family member’s death using the Hebrew Calendar, took place. It was no easier than the first period of mourning.