If you missed part two, click here.
The third person I think had a big impact on my life is one of the toughest, most joyful people I've ever met.
I was eight when we moved to St. George, one of my first friends I found after we moved was Zack Kolb. I still consider him one of my good friends, even if we don't talk much anymore. Another one of my good friends, who, like Zack I don't talk to a lot, is Austin. The three of us always tried to get back together when we were all in town at the same time when Austin moved away.
New York Yankee legend Lou Gehrig. He relates to this person in an unfortunate way.
The story starts on a hot summer day in 2010. Austin and I were at Austin's parent's house, where I anticipated Zack would arrive shortly.
Austin's phone then started to ring and he quickly answered it, "Hello?"
"Are you coming over?" I hate listening to people on the phone because I only get the half of the conversation. "What?! What's that? ... Dude, that is terrible. ... The doctor is sure?"
Now I was listening intently to any clues as to what they were talking about. My mind started racing, what could have been going on. Kreg had already had testicular cancer and was rid of that, or so I thought. Was it possible that he could have had it again, or maybe another cancer? My head was spinning.
"Ok, bud, we'll talk to you later. See ya," Austin ended the phone call and hung up.
"What's up?" I asked quickly after he had hung up. "What's wrong?"
"Kreg, man-" Austin started. He seemed to still be trying to mull it all over for himself. "He has Lou Gehrig's disease. I'm not even sure I know what that is. Do you know?"
"That's not good," Ausitn's dad, Robert, said simply.
"What?! Lou Gehrig's, that’s terrible. That's the disease where your body slowly just shuts down on you. There are not a lot of people that have this problem. That is-" I replied. I didn't know what kind of word I wanted to use to finish that. My head was really spinning now. I felt sick.
'Kreg has Lou Gherig's Disease, but don't tell anyone,' I sent in a text to my parents and my sisters to give them a head’s up. The room was still pretty quiet. The only sound was coming from the television, and even that seemed distant and muffled. There was just nothing that needed to be said at this time. There was nothing more than what we said. There was nothing important enough to break this moment of silence.
The rest of the day was solemn. I had fun hanging out with Austin, but there just wasn't anything that we could do that could get rid of the terrible thought that Kreg was super sick and the doctors had only given him about a year to live.
A few weeks later, I received my mission call and the Kolb family came over to see where I was going. This was the first time that I had seen Kreg since he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.
"Yeah, I get diagnosed with this, and the Relief Society President of my ward is at my house before I even get home," Kreg said as we were talking about how he was doing before I opened my call. He was just as happy as ever.
"Yeah," I started. "Sorry about that. That was my bad. I texted my mom and the word got out quickly. I didn't think it would move that quickly."
"Yi! Yi! Not a problem." Kreg replied with a laugh in his cheerful voice. "People were going to know."
I left a little while later for my mission in France. I chose to write a letter to Zack when I got to my second area having heard from my family that Kreg was still in good spirits, but was losing function in part of his body.
"It's another beautiful day in St. George," he said over and over even though it seemed day-by-day he got worse.
On May 25th, 2011, Kreg passed away. This man taught me that through whatever you're going through, you can smile and still see the good in the world. He fought through one of the toughest diseases I can think of. He was always cheerful, and I hope to achieve even a small amount of happiness that he lived and helped others live.
"Not gone, just gone ahead. Yi! Yi!"
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