I am not the only person who wants to keep Greg's memory alive. While searching, I came across these websites that had a story or mention of Greg. Hope you enjoy them. I was also surprised to learn there are several other men with his name. Oh, and I created a group for people to remember Greg on Facebook. Go check that out.
Greg was your normal, punk rocker, teenager with a real passion for music. That passion and energetic spirit didn't subside when he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called chondro sarcoma at only 14. The tumor was on the cartilage of his shoulder and grew so rapidly that it broke his shoulder blade. Greg's three-year struggle with cancer had begun.
Greg's father, Fred, shared his son's story of unwavering hope and unbreakable spirit. "Through it all, Greg never gave up hope or asked 'why me?' He was almost matter of fact when we talked to the doctors," recalls Fred. "It was always about getting back to everyday life."
For Greg, getting back to everyday life meant high school, his part-time job and his music. "Greg already played bass but taught himself guitar during his recuperation," says Fred. "I play some "old man's" bass, and when he got sick, we played music together."
Greg had a brain hemorrhage approximately six months before he died that impaired the use of the entire right side of his body and his ability to play guitar. However, this spirited teenager fought back and, after eight weeks of intense physical therapy, he was as strong as he had been before the hemorrhage.
Greg returned to living his life, but six months later, the cancer had spread, and he died during surgery. "We were with him right up to his surgery where he died and saw him right afterward," says Fred. "As a parent that's an image you can never forget. I try to focus on celebrating his life and doing whatever we can to avoid one more young man going through this. On one level, I like to think he knew it was time to go. I think that strong-willed kid said, 'okay it's time to take this to the next phase'."
Ironically, the Greg's family had been involved with Care Partners and Children's Cancer Research Fund for many years before Greg's diagnosis. "Sometimes God works in mysterious ways," comments Fred. "I kept asking, 'How could it be us this time?' But, I've seen the dollars that Children's Cancer Research Fund raises and how it impacts childhood cancer survival rates. It means thousands of family members won't have to say goodbye to their kid the way we did."
Although Greg died in 1999, the pain has of his loss has never ended. "We learned to put the pain in a place," says Fred. "What I hold onto is that three-year period and the incredible relationship I shared with my son. I don't think a lot of parents get to have that relationship, especially with a teenager. We have learned so much from Greg, and I like to think he tells me 'you gotta get up out of bed every morning and do life.'"
Copyright © KSTP-FM, LLC, LLC 2005-2006. All rights reserved.Do you ever think about the vanity of life? I mean the extreme brevity of it all. When I was a little kid I always used to groan at the idea of having to wait a whole year for something. A year seamed (sic) like such a long time. But as you get older, and I don't mean to claim too much wisdom, time seems to move more quickly. Or maybe time doesn't move more quickly, you just realize that time, in general, isn't as long as it seems.
When you think about how short a person's life really is, eighty, ninety years, it's almost frighteningly short. If you're a fundamentalist, we've been around eight or nine thousand years. If you're into the science thing, it's more like millions of years. Think about money, if you had a million dollars, you wouldn't give so much regard to how you used five or ten dollars here or there. But if you only had eighty dollars, you'd sweat every time you had to spend a buck. But that's our lives. Eighty years, and we're spent.
Solomon got it; all of life is vanity. Short. Fleeting. We have little or no control over it. It was written about it Psalm 91. "As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away." (Psalm 90:10). It's perplexing how little normal people actually consider thoughts like these. I mean, even without any kind of spirituality, it still might be among the most glaring philosophical challenges. One day we aren't. The next day we are. The next day we aren’t again. It's twisted really.
Earlier this afternoon I was doing some research for a blog network I'm starting up called Under the Sun. I searched to see whether the domain name was available, but found that it wasn't. What I found instead was a webspace occupied by Sharon Hundt. About nine years ago, Sharon lost her son Greg, at age 17, to cancer. He'd fought hard against the illness for three years before his body finally gave in during surgery to remove a tumor. Therapeutically, Sharon decided to construct a website for her family and in the remembrance of Greg. You can read through stories and thoughts and memories at underthesun.com. I'm sure that Sharon would be glad to know that in some way people were still finding ways to meet her son.
Reading Sharon's grief, and in some ways sharing in the experience of losing her son, it has reminded me that our lives arentt guaranteed to us. It's a wonder that we're born in the first place, let alone continue to live day by day. The story of Greg's fight and death, even at a young age, has reminded me of the vanity of life. The only decisions that I can be sure of are the ones that are made right now. I cannot be sure of next year, next month, even ten minutes from now. So in light of that, I agree with the author of Hebrews in saying that a certain day has been fixed, "Today." (Hebrews 4:7).
©William PetruzzoPlease send any comments or suggestions to me. To
read more of my stories, please check out my Random Thoughts. Thank you.
