By Julie B. Sevig T
he Schwolert family should be celebrating their son’s high school graduation this month. Instead, they’ll dedicate the reno- vated gym at Faith Lutheran Church, Flower Mound, Texas, now renamed the “Love to the MAX Center.” Max Schwolert, 17, was a high- profile victim of the winter’s influ- enza outbreak that, for him, turned into a staph infection. He died at a St. Paul, Minn., hospital four days after celebrating Christmas with his extended family in Amery, Wis. The Schwolerts were scheduled to
leave for Texas Dec. 26, but instead were at the Amery emergency room. “[Max] looked at me and said, ‘I’m scared, Mom,’ ” Melanie (Teig) Schwolert, recalled. “He had tears, and I said, ‘I am too, Max,’ and he gathered himself and said, ‘It’s going to be OK, Mom. I love you.’ ” It was their last coherent conver- sation before Max was airlifted to St. Paul. Family and friends then spent four days waiting, watching and praying. Max’s dad, Tom, describes the experience as “a wave of spirit [that came through the hospital] like nothing I’ve ever experienced. How powerful it was to see my family and how grounded they were in faith throughout. All the things [related to faith] we hope as parents that they catch came together.”
Message from
teenager’s life & death
Love is clear:
When it was time to make difficult decisions, Max’s older and younger sisters, Jazmine (“Jazzy”) and Zoey, “knew they were sending Max to God,” Tom said. Local and national media interviewed the Schwolerts, who wanted to giv e witness to Max’s faith and urge peo- ple to get flu shots.
Because of his parents’ vast church connections, his friends and Facebook, news of Max’s critical condition and eventual death spread. A friend of Jazzy’s started a Facebook page called “Pray for Max” that morphed into “Love to the MAX.” T-shirts were printed with those
During Christmas vacation, Max Schwolert, 17, Lewisville, Texas, went from sledding with cousins in Wisconsin to fighting for his life. He died from the flu just days after this family photo was taken. His church in Flower Mound, Texas, dedicates a gym in his memory this month.
words and Matthew 22:37-39. The verses personified Max, his parents said: “He modeled loving God and loving people.”
When the family returned to
Texas, they found the gymnasium where Max spent Wednesday nights playing basketball trans- formed into a memorial. Since then it’s been nicknamed “Max’s gym.” And on June 7, graduation week- end, it will officially bear his name. It already carries his spirit. In fact, Max was such a fixture
on Wednesday nights that Tom, who is Faith’s youth director, found it increasingly difficult to enter the church then and on Sunday morn- ings. He’s currently on leave, tak- ing intentional time for grief and self-care. “You can’t pour yourself out to others when there’s nothing there,” he said, candidly discussing the family’s efforts to navigate the unfamiliar territory of grief. In April, Tom cheered on Max’s best friends on the state tourna- ment-bound Marcus High School golf team on which his son played. Those who loved Max continue to be buoyed by faith and a constant stream of online photos of people wearing purple “Love to the MAX” T-shirts—from nearly every state and from as far away as Greece and France. On April 28, 146 people wore their shirts to a Rangers-Twins baseball game. Born in Minnesota, Max proudly wore loyalty for the
Vikings and Gophers, his dad said. His long-awaited acceptance letter to the University of Minnesota arrived after the family’s return home. Max, Tom said, was “a full of life kind of guy.” And what they want most is for others to hear what he knew: that we have a loving God and that we’re called to love others—to the max.
Sevig is a section editor of The Lutheran.
June 2013 27
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