Unfortunately, most of these kids don't have a whole lot of time. There was a memorial service for Danny last weekend, an opportunity for family and friends to share stories about a kid who was good at math, loved to play chess and had a flair for writing short stories and poems. They talked about a boy on the verge of manhood, an average teenager remarkable in his fight against a phantom opponent, a disease inching closer to a cure but still killing at will. And they talked about the need to keep up the good fight, to raise money for research and to urge people to become organ donors, because there is no telling when someone will need a used heart or a second-hand set of lungs. There are so many gifts they can give.
Some habits are hard to break.
Even with Danny gone, Cathie Knapp still slips into his bedroom each morning and powers up his computer. In recent years, the computer had become Danny's window to the world, a way of reaching out and making friends even if his illness kept him out of school and in the house. Many of Danny's friends didn't even know he was sick. And they probably wouldn't have known how sick even if he had told them. Although doctors identified the condition 60 years ago, cystic fibrosis is overshadowed by a host of other ailments that have more name recognition and financial support.