It breaks my heart to have to say that my beloved son Danny passed into eternity at about 3:30 A.M on Friday, April 17, 2020. He was nineteen years old. He had had so many near-death escapes that I admit I hoped he would have a long, beautiful life here on earth.

He wasn't supposed to survive to birth, but a high-risk surgery succeeded, to the doctors' great surprise. He had two near escapes from being hit by cars. He got locked in a poorly designed car which couldn’t be unlocked from the inside at the door, at age 10 or 11, by a young child playing with my car keys. He escaped because the child's mother saw him, and told me. He wasn't supposed to survive his very aggressive brain cancer (Medulloblastoma) for more than two years. He lived seven years, again to the doctors' collective astonishment.

Three of those years (January 2016 to March 2019) he had no signs of cancer, and was able to live a normal life. That was all he had ever wanted. In March of 2019 he relapsed, and we were told he would die then. Instead, he had a miraculously good response to chemotherapy, and the cancer went away for another year. It was a year of grace and one that I never took for granted.

Though his life wasn't long, it was beautiful. His school made shirts that say "Live Like Danny" on them because he was smiling all the time. He was always cheering people up, too - he loved to shake people's hands at school. Everyone thought he was a bit crazy, but couldn't help laughing. Once he offered to shake a teacher's hand when she was having a bad day, and brightened it with laughter. I always said that, if I had to define 'happy go lucky,' I would just point to Danny. He lived in the moment more than anyone else I ever knew, and, in doing so, he made people happier. He always believed that he would get better, that he would be able to go back to school, that he would have a normal life. We believed it, too. And he was right over and over, until the last relapse, when he ran out of treatment options.

We are broken hearted because he is no longer with us. He was the sunshine in our lives. We will miss him forever. I am so sad that I'll never hug him again, never watch 'We Were Soldiers' or 'Star Wars' with him again, never play games, laugh at his silly jokes, dance at his wedding, or even see him walk across the stage with his friends to receive the high school diploma that he wanted so badly to earn. (He was given the diploma privately while he was in hospice.)

Before he died, he told me that he wanted to raise money for childhood cancer research. We are honoring his request with St. Baldrick’s.

If I close my eyes, I can still hear his voice say, "Mommy" (which meant he wanted something), or feel him hug me.

"If you get there before I do
Don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through.
I don't know how long I'll be
But I'm not gonna let you down.
Danny wait and see.
And between now and then, till I see you again I'll be loving you.
Love, Me."

We love you always,
Mom, Henry, Cecily