Luke Joyce was visiting his uncle in New York when he got the call.

It was his father on the other line. Mom suffered a collapsed lung, Michael Joyce said, suggesting that the youngest come home. His oldest brother, Michael, drove down from Boston the next morning through the mid-August heat on the way back to their home in Glenview, Ill.

The immediacy struck Luke as strange, but he didn’t think much of cutting his summer vacation short. He didn’t really know what to think. Parents never really get sick, he thought.

His dad broke the news to him a few days later: lung cancer. Inoperable. The collapsed lung had been caused by an obstruction of the airways by tumors, which had already started to spread to her brain. Lizanne Joyce had months to live. 

“My heart just dropped,” Luke said. 

This was uncharted territory. Luke’s only experience with death prior had been a grandmother who passed at the age of 95.

“You never think bad things will happen to your family,” he added. “You always hear about it happening to other people.”

Friday’s game against Purdue marks the first time since she died that Luke, a reliever for the Illinois baseball team, won’t have his mother cheering for him at a Moms Weekend game. Luke’s dad and sister, Toddy, will drive down from Glenview to Champaign for Saturday and Sunday’s games, with Toddy stepping in for any mother-specific activities that might be planned.

Luke’s parents regularly made the two-hour drive to watch their son compete. They’d travel to more faraway destinations too, to Texas, Florida and Oregon. No game was too far. 

“Luke-y!” Lizanne would call from the stands. He suspects, after the fact, that this was in an attempt to embarrass him and keep his mind off pressure situations. Luke said he could always pick her voice out from the crowd over everyone else’s.

“She didn’t know the pitches I threw or how hard — basically nothing about baseball — but she was still my biggest supporter and still is,” he said. “She loved it. She cheered for everyone — just a little louder for me.”

Lizanne was diagnosed on Aug. 14 and began radiation treatment three weeks after. Spirits were high at first, but fatigue soon set in. It wasn’t until a month into the treatment that his father told Luke she would lose the fight. The reality was a slap in the face, he remembers. She rarely opened her eyes the last two weeks leading to the end. 

“We were pretty much just waiting,” Luke said. “I feel like everyone in my family knew but me.” 

Lizanne died on the morning of Oct. 9 with her husband and four children by her side. Tear-filled days and sleepless nights followed. Some days it was a battle just to leave his bed. Others he’d do all he could to keep busy and try and focus elsewhere.

Baseball has proved a worthy distraction, though he hasn’t seen the field as much as he’d like. Luke struggled in his one appearance this season against Oakland in March, when he allowed a double, threw a wild pitch, walked four and was charged with three runs without recording an out.

He said his mom was with him that night, watching him. He thinks about her daily, often before he goes to bed. If there’s a silver lining to what happened, it’s that Lizanne wasn’t diagnosed sooner. Earlier diagnosis wouldn’t have helped, Luke said. She would’ve been constrained to a hospital bed for a year rather than two months, unable to travel to all of Luke’s games. There were signs, sure. Her normal energy had gradually decreased and she’d cough here and there, but cheering for her Luke triggered her reserves. 

“She would love for me to pitch every night, every game,” Joyce said, his voice shaking. He paused. “She’s still going to watch down on me and be my biggest fan.

“Staying busy is the best thing. This is my escape.”

Jeff can be reached at [email protected] and @jkirsh91.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly spelled the name “Lyzanne Joyce.” The correct spelling is “Lizanne Joyce.” The Daily Illini regrets this error.