Their ‘Knight in shining armor’

Hospital room ceremony enables teen with cancer to realize dream of joining Knights of Columbus

CAMAS
BY TERRY MCGUIRE

Less than three months ago Ricardo Diaz-Perez was looking forward to his 18th birthday on March 15.

Then the teen -- a member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish and a highly functional autistic student at Camas High School, according to his mother – would be able to realize his ambition of joining the Knights of Columbus.

“They started mailing the (forms) and I told him about that, and he said, ‘Yeah mom, I want to be a Knight, I want to be a Knight,’” Rosemary Perez-Diaz recalled last week. “He has this very romantic idea of the stories of knighthood, and how the knights fight evil…and of course he loves also the cap and gown,” and the sword.

Then on Feb. 12, just days after coming home from school and complaining of pain in his right side following a fall in a physical education class, the young man was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma.

Since then, he has spent several extended hospital stays battling the cancer, thrice receiving the sacrament of the anointing of the sick as an inoperable tumor swelled near his heart.

“He falls into these crises -- and they get kind of serious – and then he comes out of the crisis,” his mother said.

During one of those crises, Dave Casteel, a Past Grand Knight of Camas-Washougal Fr. Blanchet Council 2999, asked the boy’s dad, Ricardo Diaz, Sr., after Mass one day how his son was doing.

“He told me” (the situation), Casteel said in an e-mail interview. “I asked if Ricardo Jr. still wanted to become a Knight. He answered, ‘Oh yes, definitely.’ I said I would make some calls and let him know.”

That started the ball rolling.

On April 1, in an abbreviated ceremony at Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital in Portland, the 18 year old was knighted as a Knight in the Catholic fraternal organization by Washington State Deputy John Walker and as a Sir Knight by State Ceremonialist and Master Wayne Hogan.

State’s youngest Knight
He’s the youngest 4th degree Knight in the state, and possibly in the entire order because the eligibility period for 4th degree is normally a year, Casteel said.

Ricardo’s father, already a first degree Knight, was exemplified at the same time, receiving the 2nd, 3rd and 4th degrees so he wouldn’t have to leave the room for those ceremonies, Casteel said. “They intentionally knighted Ricardo Jr. first,” he said, “so that he could ‘outrank’ his father by a few seconds.”

The young man, who had previously been active in the Knights’ youth fraternity at his parish, the Columbian Squires Circle, said by phone from his hospital room last week that he can’t wait to “start helping out” as a Knight.

“It’s great to be a Knight for Jesus Christ,” he said. “It’s an honorable group because it helps the community, it helps the church.” He noted that he was attracted to the Knights by their presence at Masses and their love for the Lord.

How soon he’ll be able to assume his Knightly duties is hard to tell. His mother said he faces a three-year program to eradicate the cancer, with the first year involving intensive treatment.

For now, she’s putting together a scrap book of his experiences. “I call him my Knight in shining armor because he’s been through a lot” she said.

She tells her son: “You’re a Knight…You’re fighting this illness (and) you’ve got Jesus before you. And every time I mention Jesus…and our (Blessed Mary)…if he’s in pain, he stops complaining. He closes his eyes, and his face just lights up.

“It comforts him a lot during this pain, and he has been through a lot of pain.”

The mother said it’s been difficult watching their only child suffer, but his ordeal has caused her to take strength from Jesus and Mary. She notes that Mary at the foot of the cross would have loved to have held Jesus in her arms to alleviate his pain, but she couldn’t.

“But my son has been given back to me (three times),” she said, “and I can try to alleviate, if I can, his pain.”

She added that God has been providing for their family all along this journey, in the way their parish and Knight communities have been reaching out to support them,  praying for them, bringing meals, sending cards and looking for other ways to be of help.

“We’ve been really blessed.”