If leukemia has taught Hollister resident Jose Rocha anything, it’s that cancer teaches a kind of empathy that helps him understand other people. Rocha, 18, was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia nearly five months ago. Since his diagnosis on Valentine’s Day, Rocha experienced great acts of kindness and unkindness that left him wondering why people behave the way they do.
Note: This is Part 3 in a three-part series.
If leukemia has taught Hollister resident Jose Rocha anything, it’s that cancer teaches a kind of empathy that helps him understand other people.
Rocha, 18, was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia nearly five months ago. Since his diagnosis on Valentine’s Day, Rocha experienced great acts of kindness and unkindness that left him wondering why people behave the way they do. It has shown Rocha that working as a psychologist – and helping people assess their attitudes and behavior – will be a way to help others deal with difficult life situations, especially if they don’t have the same kind of support he found in his own family.
While Rocha looks like any other high school graduate, the actions of others have much more of an effect on him now that he is battling cancer.
Sitting in a Subway sandwich shop, Rocha was surprised when a stranger tried to walk off with his prescription sunglasses, which looked like black designer shades but actually protected his eyes from the sun while he was in the first phase of chemotherapy.
“I saw him walking away with his arm swinging away and my glasses are gone from the table,” Rocha said.
Rocha was afraid to confront the youth because the doctors had warned him that getting any kind of blow to the head could cause internal bleeding that couldn’t be stopped. He asked the youth for his glasses but the stranger pretended he didn’t know what Rocha was talking about.
Suddenly, Rocha’s phone rang and as he picked up the call, he watched the youth move down the street with his property.
Rocha the psychologist
As Rocha’s mom Alicia Andrade-Rocha looked through photos of her son wearing those shades at his high school graduation on a computer screen in the family’s living room, she remembered how the Subway incident made Rocha reflect on why people act the way they do. Rocha was already thinking like a psychologist, as he analyzed the motivations behind the stranger’s actions.
“He says, ‘Mom, sometimes I think people like that didn’t have a good role model or someone to support them or to show them love,” Andrade-Rocha said.
“They’re just troubled,” Rocha said.
“And that’s why he wants to really pursue this,” Andrade-Rocha said, as she reflected on her son’s desire to pursue a career as a psychologist.
Rocha went on: “A person wasn’t there to teach them right from wrong or maybe they really feel a need to take things because they’ve never had something like that.”
Life-threatening illness makes nature more precious
When faced with an illness that is life threatening, the good and the bad become more intense.
During his first phase of chemotherapy earlier this year, Rocha had to spend days in a hospital where glass windows separated him from the outdoor world he loved. Since his immune system was compromised and he couldn’t go outside, he used to walk to a glass patio where he’d stare out at the world he couldn’t touch. He couldn’t feel the sun on his skin or smell the scent of freshly cut grass or even a smelly dog.
“And I would just look out at the nature and the birds and wonder, when am I going to be able to go outside?” Rocha said.
In this journey through the first phases of chemotherapy and finishing the work required to graduate from high school, Rocha experienced the support of friends, family and strangers, which reminded him that other people cared about helping others – just like he did.
Adrian Ramirez – the San Benito High School assistant principal assigned to help students with last names that include the letter “R” – personally came by the family’s Hollister home to deliver Rocha’s graduation cap and gown along with an anonymous gift: a class ring and graduation announcements.
“Jose really wanted a class ring,” Andrade- Rocha said. “And we couldn’t get it for him.”
A class ring was an expensive luxury item to begin with and then the time to purchase the ring fell right when the family was paying for expensive medications to battle cancer and more gas to make trips to the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto.
Time for new dreams
Outside the family’s living room, wind chimes ring. Rocha’s beloved silver truck is visible from the room’s couch where Rocha first spent time when he began to feel tired from the effects of leukemia – even before he knew he had cancer. It’s also the same couch where Rocha rested after graduating with his peers. The truck gleams bright like Rocha’s dreams for the future.
It’s been a long road to here – to this moment – in the middle of chemotherapy treatments and more than a month after high school graduation.
“Sometimes life takes you places where you have no choice — dark places – and even if its worse than terrible, you have to find your way and you have to keep going and learn from it and don’t give up,” Andrade-Rocha said.
Rocha is one teenager whom – despite the set backs – is still working toward his dreams.
“I’ve learned that – don’t stay in a bad place because you think there’s no way out,” said Andrade-Rocha. “There’s always a way out.”
