Some things you want to remember. Some you don’t. Some things you can’t remember and those might be the experiences that toughen, shape and drive us.
Fifteen years ago, Jackson Vaughan was in a world of hurt. A world he hadn’t chosen. A world he barely remembers but which informs his daily life as surely as does breathing and eating breakfast.
“I am an underdog, I know it and own it,” Vaughan said. “A lot of people could have given up on me and didn’t, and I owe to it to them to never give up.”
The underdog has become the top dog. The big dog. The rabid dog you may not want to be facing if he’s on the mound and you are at the plate.
Vaughan, a senior at BHS, is No. 1 in his class and will serve as one of the valedictorians come June. He's also become a terrific pitcher. None of this was supposed to happen because he was never predicted to make it out of a Bay Area hospital.
When Vaughan — son of local geologist Jeff and interior designer Jenny — was 3, he was diagnosed with a rare liver cancer. Odds for survival were slim. Treatment included chemotherapy and two liver transplants, the second one being necessary because the first one failed.
“At one point his heart stopped for 36 minutes and some brave and devoted doctors and nurses kept fighting for our son longer than some might have,” Jeff wrote at the time.
The Vaughans spent eight months at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto. They gained a new appreciation for both the hospital, other patients (“many of the children battled but did not make it”) and their friends in Bakersfield, who stood by them, hung welcome home signs on their front door and Christmas lights on their house.
“We learned how deep and warm the bonds of this community are,” Jeff said.
I had written a column about Vaughan and his family back then. Life went on and when I saw Jenny and Jeff last Friday it was hard to believe 15 years had passed.
This one has a happy ending although “ending” doesn’t seem like the right word for the story of someone who will be graduating this spring, attending UCSB in the fall and who may become the first player in the history of the NCAA to play Division I sports after having undergone a liver transplant.
“My dad was worried that I might not be able to play in college because I take anti-rejection drugs,” Vaughan said. “He called the NCAA and the drugs are fine as long as they have been prescribed by a doctor.
“They also said they were not aware of any other NCAA baseball player who had had a liver transplant.”
After talking to Vaughan last week, I was proud of the kid and he wasn’t even my kid. It was one of those conversations that makes you feel good about life all over again and wasn’t as if you were feeling so bad to begin with.
In addition to his prowess on the mound (being a 5-foot-7-inch pitcher in a bigger man’s sport), playing on a club team the last two years and his excellence in the classroom, Vaughan has a sense of gratitude, an acknowledgment of debt and a burning desire to succeed.
“It’s about being on borrowed time,” Vaughan said. “I don’t want to waste it because I know there are a lot of kids who haven’t been as lucky as I have.”
When’s the last time you heard a kid say that? When was the last time you heard an adult say that? And we should know better because if time is not borrowed, it is precious.
Vaughan doesn’t remember being 3 and in the hospital except the CT scan (“I called it the doughnut”) and “eating purple Popsicles and drinking chocolate milk.”
Rounding out school and baseball, Vaughan does community service with Marley’s Mutts, helping adopt out dogs and raising money for blankets and dog food.
Vaughan seems both an old and young soul. Enthusiastic but thoughtful in a direct sort of way. He remembers, even if he doesn’t.
