Carpe Diem

Thomas Alan Gosser
January 1999 -- Oct. 6, 2008

I met Tommy when this picture was taken two years ago. He was 7.

No journalist I know actually wants to interview a 7-year-old, let alone interview a 7-year-old about his cancer.

But Tommy was different. This little first-grader comfortably answered questions about what he called his "exciting and traumatic adventure" with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare cancer of the bones and soft tissue. I still remember sitting there in the family's sun room that day praying that one day I wouldn't be back there talking about Tommy in the past tense.

It's a prayer that wasn't answered.

I was back in that sun room about 10 days ago, talking to Tommy's father for a story I would put in the paper after his son died. Young Tommy was asleep in a hospital bed that was the focus of the next room. And his dad, while talking about his son's death and his legacy, often looked away from me to that enormous bed and the tiny boy in it.

I talked to his father again yesterday after Tommy died. His mother was with him when he died at about 4 a.m. Monday.

So very sad. So many missed opportunities. Tommy will never go to college, never fall in love, never get married or have kids.

It reminds me how important it is to seize the day.