Selfless From the Soul

Television cameras and reporters, sensitive microphones and notebooks all

litter the field at Vidinha Stadium.

The mayor is there, too. And for a

split second, you wonder if the smile and evident goodwill rising like freshly

baked bread from the persona of Travis Fernandez is for show, for the benefit

of the Honolulu TV stations.

But then you share a word with this young

man, this 18 year old stricken with Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma, and your

toes curl up in a smile. Curl because for that moment in time, that 20-minute

conversation with this boy who was fighting sessions of chemotherapy before he

reached voting age, you realize that genuine spirits are the spice of life.

You realize that your life has been inspired, and, more importantly,

improved.

You shake Travis’ hand after you’re finished talking, feel his

powerful grip, see his toothy grin, hear him say that doctors have told him his

outlook is good and you know this man is far from death.

But then you get

a flash of human pessimism, and your insides twist and turn like a gymnast as

you try and imagine the world moving forward without Travis.

“It’s been a

long time since I thought about death,” the face before you says. “I’ve got too

much living to do.”

This puts you at peace, and you snap back to reality

for a moment, and remember why you are here.

A Selfless

Wish

Travis, a standout football and track star for Waimea before the

December 1998 cancer diagnosis ended his athletic career, is the focal point of

a press conference being held in his honor. His diagnosis in hand, the

Make-A-Wish Foundation told Travis to ask for something, anything.

“Disney-related wishes by far outnumber the rest of the wishes we grant,”

said Lyn Brown, Executive Director of Make-A-Wish, Hawai’i. “Computers are

second and then entertainment systems or shopping sprees.”

Those things

never crossed Travis’ mind. Instead, he wanted a rubberized track surface to be

constructed at Vidinha Stadium. Facing the prospect of death, Travis wanted

improvement for others’ lives.

“There were a lot of people helping me out,”

Travis said. “I wanted to give back, to do something for the

community.”

Unfortunately, Travis’ wish carried a $750,000 price tag. Not

even Make-A-Wish could make that wish. But it did, through a grant from United

Auto Workers, get its hands on $10,000 that it presented to the County of

Kaua’i Monday for construction of a high-jump pit in Travis’ honor. The pit,

hopes Kaua’i Mayor Maryanne Kusada, will mark the beginning of the rubberized

track project.

“We are the only island that doesn’t have a facility of

that quality for our kids,” the mayor said. “So we are hoping this will come to

pass.

“But what a generous act on Travis’ part. It shows how the act of

giving and the sense of community is rooted on our island. We all join hands to

help out.”

An athletic victim

To prepare himself for track

meets, Travis shaved his head anyway, so he says, laughing, that his friends

didn’t even know he was sick until they were told.

“Bald is beautiful,” he

tells you.

And on him you agree. He looks good with no hair, the sun free

to bounce from the exposed skin. But you’re not naive; you understand that this

young man’s body has been ravaged by chemicals. He can’t even tell you how many

times he’s been administered chemotherapy. “I lost track, it’s been so many,”

he says.

You stand there, trying to stay levelheaded, but you hurt for

Travis. You know that the rounds and rounds of chemical treatment have stripped

him of the thing he loves most: competition.

Travis ran the relays and

hurdled during his freshman and sophomore years at Waimea. He played varsity

football for Jon Kobayashi his sophomore and junior years.

“I was a

linebacker,” Travis says. “I loved to hit people.”

You glance at his frame,

still looking strong despite the treatment’s depleting, and wonder what must

have been. Thankfully, you were never the ball carrier Travis intended to

flatten. You might have yearned for treatment of your own.

Travis beams as

he talks sports. He tells you about the pride and enjoyment he took from

working hard on the football field, the basketball tournament on Oahu he missed

his junior year because he was diagnosed just as the season was finding its

full swing.

And you hurt for him more.

But Travis doesn’t want you to

hurt, so he regales you with tales of his mishaps on the Vidinha track, its

dirt and loose pebbles turning a meet into a Funniest Home Videos

episode.

“I remember one time I was running the 300-meter hurdles right

over there,” Travis says, pointing to the track’s fourth turn. “I’m rounding

that corner and bamm! I ate it.

“But I got up and finished the

race.

“Same thing happened in the 110-meter hurdles over there,” he says,

as he points to the straightaway in front of the main stands. “I was trying to

get my footing and bamm! I ate it again, cut my chin open. But I finished the

race in fifth out of seven runners.

“Not bad, eh?”

Not bad at all, you

think.

“I have used a lot of the ideas and principles I was taught in

athletics to help get me through this cancer,” Travis says. “Sports puts it in

your mind to never give up, that you can never think you’re going to

lose.

“In my case that means trying never to think I was going to

die.”

You want to put this teenager on a poster, write a caption beneath

his photo about doing the right thing and hand it out to every pre-teen on the

island, in the state.

“He’s really an inspiration for other kids,” Brown

said. “Every kid who runs on the track will have Travis to thank for

improvements.”

Here’s to the future

Many days lie ahead for

Travis Fernandez. Though the press conference to announce his wish had to be

postponed in September because of chemotherapy, the young man looks

sturdy.

“He always was a leader,” said his track coach Dave

Walker.

And that may be what the future holds for Travis.

But for now,

he draws, ironically, on that which has been afflicting him for two years in

the search for motivation.

“I’m taking classes at KCC (Kaua’i Community

College) right now,” Travis says. “I’m studying Radiologic Technology.”

You

can’t help but smile again, the umpteenth time Travis has made you do that. CT

scans and the like, the things he has endured and watched others endure so many

times at Honolulu’s Queens Medical Center since December of 1998, now have

peaked his interest.

“So many people over there taking radiation, going

through that,” Travis says, “it’s really sad. From open to close Queens is

packed.

“I just like the idea of doing something on Kaua’i for people like

that.”

There’ll be no dying for Travis Fernandez. The world needs men like

him to live forever.

By DENNIS FUJIMOTO, Staff