MAESTRELLO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-01-25 published
'Death has never fazed me'
Joyful teenager taught children and parents how to live with
cancer
By Michael
VALPY
Saturday,
January 25, 2003, Page F11
Cory MAESTRELLO didn't just have cancer, he was a philosopher
of cancer. This week he left life celebrated, something he would
have considered appropriate for every young person inflicted
with his disease.
He was a month short of his 18th birthday. He believed cancer
was a gift that had enriched his life.
He died remembered for his infectious enthusiasm, his joy, his
grin, his insights into living with a terminal illness, the love
he showed to other sufferers, his toughness and his inclination
to do impromptu Riverdance imitations in hospital elevators.
On Tuesday afternoon, lying in a hospital bed in Sudbury, Ontario,
with pneumonia, he told his father Art: "I'm going to beat this."
He was dead a few hours later.
His Sudbury high school, St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School,
cancelled exams, declared a "Cory Day" and allowed its students
to go home.
The lead singer of a student band in which he had once played
composed a song for him. Students from high schools across the
city turned up to sign a Cory poster in St. Benedict's chapel.
CJOH-Television, the Canadian Television Network outlet in Ottawa,
broadcast a 3½-minute tribute to him on its 6 o'clock news, part
of a documentary-in-the-making of his life that now will never
be completed. The station's vice-president of news and public
affairs, Max
KEEPING, was to attend Cory's funeral mass today.
Many members of the Ottawa Senators hockey team planned to attend
a memorial service for him at Ottawa's Children's Hospital of
Eastern Ontario.
Parents of other children with cancer being treated at the hospital
were devastated by the news that he had died, said palliative
care nurse Marilyn
CASSIDY. "
There have been so many families
calling."
Cory had befriended and counselled them. He had taught them,
parents and children, how to live with cancer and the process
of dying.
Interviewed last November for a Globe and Mail Focus article
on how to live life at the edge of death, he said: "Death has
never fazed me. The only thing that's fazed me is not getting
the chance to live this life . . . and I've lived more in two
years [with cancer] than most people will live in their entire
life, and I appreciate that."
Cory MAESTRELLO, the
son of a retired mine worker, revelled in
living for his last two years.
"I feel there's a path out there for me," he said. "Be it by
God or whatever the higher power is, I always feel there's a
path set out for me."
He visited with dying children in the hospital, even after doctors
told him that he himself was beyond treatment. He spoke at dead
children's memorial services.
He approached Mr.
KEEPING last year and asked if he could appear
on CJOH's annual fundraising telethon for the hospital. Mr.
KEEPING
agreed.
Cory was on air for an hour, talking about what it was like to
have cancer and showing photographs of Serge, his closest friend
at the hospital, who had died. Mr.
KEEPING called his presence
"compelling."
Cory said excitedly afterward: "Working on the telethon was a
blast. The words that I said helped people. It's given me the
tools to help people. I don't care if I die tomorrow."
He talked to his Globe and Mail interviewer about the joy he
felt with life. "Your very best day is probably my worst day,"
he said.
He talked about the importance of each day. "I always let everyone
know I love them," he said, "just in case I don't get the chance
to. I've got to say everything that I need to say today. I may
not be here tomorrow to say it."
Said Ms. CASSIDY: "
You sometimes found yourself asking if he
was too good to be true. He was the real thing, big-time. He
was a very special kid" -- a hero to other youngsters with cancer,
she said, who faced his own adversity with inner strength and
inner ability.
Cory and Max
KEEPING became Friends after the
CJOH telethon.
The station executive took him to Senators' games and introduced
him to the players. People introduced to Cory rarely, if ever,
forgot him.
He had a delightful, buzzy energy, with an intelligence that
measured off the Richter scale, said Nic
BATTIGELLI, one of Cory's
St. Benedict teachers who gave a eulogy for him at his funeral.
He was charming, and attractive to girls -- frequently girls
older than himself. Mr.
BATTIGELLI recalled him taking a beautiful
Grade 13 student to an event while he was still in Grade 9.
Mr. KEEPING recalled taking Cory to a party for his 30th anniversary
as a television broadcaster just before Christmas (Cory was living
at the children's hospital's Ronald McDonald House; he went home
to Sudbury at Christmas and never returned).
At 2 a.m., Mr.
KEEPING suggested to Cory that it was maybe time
to to leave. Cory replied that there were still two people at
the party, and as long as someone was partying, he wanted to
party.
Mr. KEEPING said: "I feel so good that even in six months this
kid could teach me how important today is . . . that what's important
is what you do with today. He turned on a light and, I know I
shouldn't say this, but the light's gone out. It's sad for me.
But how enriched I've been -- and I said that on air."
Mr. BATTIGELLI and Cory had developed a bond even before the
boy was diagnosed with cancer. Cory wanted to become a teacher,
and told Mr.
BATTIGELLI shortly after he met him: "You're the
teacher I want to be."
Mr. BATTIGELLI said Cory, as a 14-year-old Grade 9 student, asked
to join an anti-violence peer-meditation program the teacher
ran at the school, and later asked to accompany Mr.
BATTIGELLI
on a similar conflict resolution project he had started in a
nearby first nations community. He said Cory was superb at it.
"He just was a kid who was not a kid," Mr.
BATTIGELLI said. "I
think God has truly picked up an angel. God sends us signposts.
I think he will be my guardian angel for the rest of my teaching
career."
St.
Benedict principal Teresa
STEWARD/STEWART/STUART, when she cancelled exams
this week, said: "This is a time for Cory."
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