When I was first given this assignment on writing an essay about an influential person in our lives, only one name came to mind. That is the name of my older brother, Danny. For as long as I can remember, he has been the one true male role model in my life. Danny is the oldest of four children born to my mother. I am, at thirty-eight years old, eight years younger than he. He, therefore, is forty-five, or at least he would have been, had he lived that long. You see, I lost my wonderful brother Danny just a little over a year ago, due to the ravages of terminal cancer, Stage IV Melanoma, to be exact. The date was January 9, 2002. Truly, it was the saddest day of my life.
Danny was always the most responsible one of us kids. He, being the oldest, took on the task of taking care of his younger siblings while our Mother went out into the world to make a living so that we would have the best that she could provide. Even though he was just a teenager, he did so with an attitude of cheerfulness and pride.
My fondest memories are of Danny, our sister Diane and myself in the backyard of the house we were raised in, while Danny tried to teach his little sisters how to play the most time-honored beach community game of, - what else? - none other than Over-The-Line. Being raised in a beach community, one had to know how to play Over-The-Line or risk being labeled an outcast. So as Danny saw it, he was keeping his little sisters from certain doom of ridicule and shame. All Diane and I knew was that we were lucky to have an older brother who liked to spend time with his pesky little sisters that were so much younger than he was.
I remember once, Danny and Liz, the woman who later became his wife, while they were in their early stages of dating in high-school, took me to an amusement park. I was the luckiest little sister in the world to have a brother who wanted to take me to a place like that. I now know that he was trying in his wonderful way to make up for the lack of the father figure we both missed in our lives. Well, that day at the amusement park became known, even to this day, as the “Belmont Park Incident.” Even though we spent the whole day there, doing almost everything that the park had to offer, I still managed to throw a tantrum because I didn’t get to go on the one ride that I had my heart set on, the Ferris Wheel. Despite the fact that we had a wonderful day, I still wasn’t happy just because I couldn’t go on just that one ride. So now, even in my older and wiser years, everyone still refers to the Belmont Park Incident when something doesn’t quite go the way I wish it would. “Pulling a Belmont Park” is how it’s lovingly referred to in my family, even twenty-seven years later. I really don’t think that I’ll ever be able to live it down.
Danny always took pride in all that he did, and with good reason. He excelled in everything. He was a very good student, making the highest grades in all his classes early on in grammar school, and continued to do so until he graduated from UC Davis in the summer of 1980 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. That is something that I always admired Danny for. He knew early on in his life what he wanted to be when he grew up and he was very dedicated to achieving that goal.
Even though he was a very hard working student who achieved high marks in school, he still had time to create a wonderful social life for himself. He was a star athlete from the time he was thirteen, all the way through his college years at UC Davis. He made quarterback of the football team at each of the schools he attended. It was only after he had sustained several migraines, due to being hit in the head so many times over the years of playing, that he was finally forced to give up the sport. By then, he had other goals well on their way to being achieved, so leaving football behind wasn’t such a heart-break for him. He had been dating his high-school sweetheart, Liz, for nearly eight years at that point, and they were getting married in the summer of 1980. Even marrying Liz was something that Danny had dreamt of doing since his early childhood. They had met in third grade. They were truly a match made in heaven, and everyone knew it. They were the quintessential dream team. Danny and Liz remained completely faithful to one another, even though they were two thousand miles apart during their four years in college, only seeing one another on holidays and during the summer months.
After two years of marriage and one unfortunate miscarriage, Liz finally gave birth to the first of their two sons. Cameron and Kyle are now two fine young men who share the same wonderful outlook on life that their father had. Danny always taught the boys, as he taught his little sisters, to live life with an attitude of gratitude, even when it seems that life has dealt you an unfair hand. Since I was born with a physical disability, that was a lesson that now, as an adult, I try very hard to still pay tribute to.
When we learned nearly six years ago that Danny was ill, we took our lead from him. He set the tone for how this new challenge, as he called it, was going to be approached. He faced his cancer head-on. Plunging into research, utilizing the Internet to do so, he found a wonderful website called the Melanoma Patients Information Page, or http://www.mpip.org. There, he learned more about Melanoma than he would have learned straight from any doctor’s mouth. He also stumbled on a wonderful bulletin board community within that site, wherein he could share his story with others going through the same ordeal. He inspired and gave hope to many who were suffering with Melanoma. His humorous approach to this most difficult of situations made many feel as if they could actually beat THE BEAST, as Melanoma is known throughout the MPIP. There, in the MPIP, anyone suffering with Melanoma became known as Warriors. Danny was, not only in my opinion, but in the opinion of all that knew him, the mightiest of all warriors. Perhaps, without consciously realizing it, that’s why I entitled this essay what I did.
Danny even created his own website, chronicling his journey in life as a new cancer patient. This website is meant as a tool for people who want or need to learn about Melanoma and its treatment options. On his website, you’ll find not only learning tools for Melanoma itself, but also family pictures and hundreds of quotes and excerpts from books that Danny found inspiring or humorous. He truly felt that through laughter and looking for humor in even the bleakest of situations, you could survive anything, even death. Through his website he wanted to share that belief with the world.
The final chapter in Danny’s life was one of struggle, laughter, gratitude, love, inspiration, perseverance and an unbelievable amount of courage. Despite feeling quite ill during all of the chemo treatments, he continued to live life to the fullest as long as the Lord would allow. He bodysurfed, snow-skied, lifted weights, and yes, played his beloved football with his two sons in between chemo treatments. He made sure to make the most of each moment.
It wasn’t until August of 2002 that he tried the final protocol of medicine. The one that we now know killed him. Gleevec was a trial medicine in the fight against Melanoma. It had had a successful outcome for many in the fight against Leukemia, and when the medicine that Danny had previously been using stopped working and his doctors suggested Gleevec, Danny, being the optimistic fighter that he was, decided to try it. Within one month, however, we knew that Gleevec was the wrong choice. Not only did the Gleevec treatment not halt the progression of the cancer cells, as all of the previous treatments had, it accelerated the growth of the cancer cells to such a rapid extent that nothing could be done to stop or reverse it.
In the five months that followed, Danny had lost half of his body weight and had become jaundiced from the cancer attacking and shutting down his liver. We were blessed to have spent one last Christmas season with this inspirational man. I think it was even more of a blessing because we all knew it would be the last Christmas season spent with him. He was weak on Christmas day, and by the New Year, his doctor had given him the “Get your things in order” speech. The week that followed was a blur of list writing and task building. One of those tasks was to call SD Hospice. The plan was to keep Danny at home until the end, and Hospice would come out to help in any way that they could. Well, only two days after meeting with the Hospice worker, Danny was rushed to their facility with renal failure. His wife Liz and their two boys were with him in his hospital room the whole night, and by morning, Liz found herself making the phone calls that she had so dreaded. Those were the calls to all the family that we should get there, and fast. It was time to say good-bye to our beloved warrior.
My biggest regret in life is that I was the only one in the family to not have made it in time to say that final good-bye. Not having a car, and living further away than the rest of the family, I had called the one man that I know who owns a vehicle with a wheel-chair lift. He lives way up in the North County, so by the time he reached my house in East County, my brother had already passed away. My father had called just as I was leaving, and told me not to bother coming, that my brother was already gone. There was no point in coming to say good-bye when he had already passed away. Or at least that’s what my father had said. I, on the other hand, said something quite different. I told my father that I was still on my way and not to let anyone touch my brother until I got there. I still wanted to see him and to say good-bye. I needed that for closure, I suppose. I indeed got that chance. Though, good-bye was not what I told him. I simply told my wonderful brother to save a dance for his little sister up there on those streets of gold. Being that I was born a paraplegic, I know we’re both looking forward to that dance.
Not only was it through my brother’s life that was he my inspiration, but also through his death. He died every bit the way that he lived. Laughter, gratitude, perseverance, untold amounts of dignity and courage were the standards that he lived and died by. He had always inspired me to try my best to live by the same standards, and though he is now in Heaven, it is the desire to honor his memory that will continue to inspire me to live out the rest of my life, to the best of my ability, in that very same manner.
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