A Man with Only Memories

**The Phanatic Magazine recognizes the charitable causes involved with the TLS Memorial and the man they represent. The magazine's name will be proudly displayed in support on the 13th tee box during this Friday's TLS Memorial Golf Tournament**

By Jared Trexler
The Phanatic Magazine

A large shadow crippled to a mere skeleton by death's doing.

Imagine being in denial all that time. As a deadly disease's course won over the newest and strongest drugs, all a young college kid could muster were dreams.

Yet, even they couldn't overcome a real-life nightmare. A 6-foot-7 giant in appearance and exuberance reduced to a ghost, fading away with each passing moment as Christmas Day 2004 neared.

Terry Stevens died practically hours after I returned home for winter break. I came home early, skipping my last final and driving three-plus hours as my father kept preparing me for the worst.

"It isn't good. He doesn't look like himself."
-------------------------------------------
He did many months earlier.

A bad back withstanding, Terry had taken up golf to spend more time with me. Using a set of clubs far too small, he whacked a little white ball far too many times without a hint of disgust.

Instead he spent his time laughing, offering logic to calm my club-tossing tendencies, holding an ailing back every so often.

That ailing back was cancer...in his liver. With each doctor's appointment came worse news. It was in his lungs, spreading fast and furious. It was stage four, likely to the point that one of the nation's premier cancer center's (Sloan/Kettering in New York City) couldn't save him.

Yet, he stayed positive. He lived life, maintaining a strong relationship with his wife and two young boys. Jacy Stevens was born just months before his father's passing.

His friends, my parents, his wife Lisa all took turns driving with him to chemo treatments. I was three hours away from reality, tucked in Happy Valley, where everything was happy and cancer wasn't real.

It soon became very real.
---------------------------
I last spoke to him just past Thanksgiving in 2004. He had lost some weight and all his hair. We talked about school, girls, basketball.

We didn't talk about cancer. Nor the apparent fact that he was dying.

The last piece of wisdom he uttered attempted to cheer me up. "You will find that special girl." A man dying finding time to cheer up someone else.

What could I say? "You won't die." I said nothing.
--------------------------------------------------
I walked into the living room to a site I wasn't prepared for. Tubes everywhere, and a man that little resembled my uncle lying with his eyes closed holding his son Jonah on his lap.

Earlier in the day, Jonah had asked his mother, "Why is daddy always tired?" I asked myself that night, "Why is Uncle T dying on me?"

Everyone else left the room. It was me and him -- just like it was when I needed a sounding board. Someone to make sense of my early adolescence and venture toward adulthood.

He couldn't speak, the cancer building overflowing fluid in his lungs. I talked to him about school, girls, basketball.

I then finally broke down. "I love you. And I'm going to make you proud of me."
---------------------------------------------------------------
Four years later, the TLS Memorial is going strong. The golf tournament gives money to a cancer organization, a high school scholarship and an education endowment for Terry's two young sons.

Each year, I say the goodbye I never managed when he could have answered back.

I miss him dearly. I wish I could tell him that today.

I try to with each swing of the club. Each story of the past.

On Friday, July 27, the area will again convene to remember a large shadow. There are no pictures of his cancer or his physical deterioration.

We remember Terry. I remember the most important male presence in my life save my father.

Uncle Johnny, this horse bite is for you.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Phanatic Magazine is a sponsor for the 2007 TLS Memorial. Jared Trexler can be reached at jtrexler@phanaticmag.com