Well after almost a year of fighting (not the whole time though) a friend and teammate passed away today. He was the starting shortstop for our JV baseball team last year and I was the starting 3rd baseman. He was a junior this year but never made it to school. He was a grade ahead of me and even though he wasn’t a friend outside of baseball but I had a few good times with him while he was playing with us for a couple of weeks. During the season his arm was hurting very bad so he got it checked out once and they said it was nothing. He went again and they said that they might have found something so they brought him back a day later and he had leukimia. It wasn’t too bad at that point they caught it early and they got rid of it in his arm enough so that he could get out of the hospital for the end of the summer I believe and fall I saw him around. They let him out long enough to go fishing and hang out with his friends and relatives. Then recently they found something in his spinal fluid and then things went downhill and the last few days they were keeping him alive at the hospital and I was supposed to go see him friday. He wasn’t doing good and not concious. Today during school they called down his relatives one of my good friends and I knew something was wrong and a few classes later they announced that he had passed away. I have never seen anything like it. This kid was a friend to almost everyone 9-12. We are a small school and have 7-12 in one building. Almost everyone was crying in the hall. To make things worse we had a kid who was supposed to graduate last year and was taking 1 class for half of this year. He was killed in a car accident Sunday. In 5 days we had 2 deaths in our school and we’re pretty small. A teacher that is retiring this year and has been at the school his whole life said he never saw anything as bad as today. It was one of the worst things I have ever experienced. He was a great kid and was liked by everyone and it’s a shame it had to happen to him. Please keep him and his family in your prayers. They need it.
RIP Hector
Bower