Some stories don’t end. They stretch across decades, threading themselves through graduation ceremonies, school hallways, and mountain trails.
The story of David Benyo is one of those.
In December of 1997, David’s parents discovered something no parent ever wants to find. What followed was a rhabdomyosarcoma diagnosis and the fight that would define the next two and a half years of their lives.
David was fierce. When nurses came to do what nurses had to do, this little four-year-old would look them square in the eye and announce, “I’m a cheetah!” He meant it. The nurses always said the feisty ones are the fighters. For the next year David endured chemotherapy, surgery, and blood transfusions. Treatment went well, and David’s grapefruit-sized tumor retreated. Soon enough David and his family were enjoying a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World. It was everything a wish should be.
But not long after they came home, the cancer returned, this time in his bone marrow. Doctors threw everything they had at it—high-dose chemotherapy, radiation, and one of the first pediatric stem cell transplants ever performed at Minneapolis Children’s Hospital. David went into remission again. Then his cancer returned for the second time.
There was nothing more doctors could do. David was not yet seven years old when he told his family he didn’t want any more treatment. They brought him home and kept him close. In May of 2000, David passed away, leaving behind a mother, a father, a little sister who said, “Mommy, half of me is gone,” and everyone who had the gift of knowing him.
Alicia was one of those people.
She and David were kindergarten classmates who also attended the same church, where Alicia’s mother taught Sunday school. They were friends the way kids become friends: simply and completely.
When David died, Alicia lost her first friend. For years, the grief took a specific shape. She wanted nothing to do with cancer. It took the people you loved, and she couldn’t talk about it.
But she never stopped staying in touch with his mom, Michele.
When Alicia graduated from high school, she called Michele and told her she wanted her there. After the ceremony, she pressed a locket into Michele’s hands. Inside was David’s photo and the words “We remember.”
“David walked across the stage with me,” she said.
Today, Alicia is a special needs teacher at the very elementary school her and David attended. Recently, Alicia lost her mother, David’s Sunday school teacher, to cancer. She had been woven into this story from the very beginning and now she was gone too.
This August, Alicia will lace up her boots to join Michele at the CureSearch Ultimate Hike along Minnesota’s Superior Hiking Trail. She’s hiking for David, for her mom, and for every family that’s ever sat inside a grief too heavy for words — because sometimes the only thing left to do with that kind of loss is turn it into something positive.
Together, Michele and Alicia will cover 25.5 miles of rugged, beautiful trail on the Superior Hiking Trail. Every step is healing.
“Me and my mom were best friends, just like I was friends with David,” Alicia says. “This gives me the opportunity to do something meaningful for both of them.”
That is what the CureSearch Ultimate Hike is: purpose and hope.
CureSearch is changing the odds for every child diagnosed with cancer, funding the researchers and the breakthroughs working to give kids like David different endings. With every mile hiked and every dollar raised, Michele and Alicia help make this work possible.
Would you lace up your boots and join them on the trail? Learn more and register at curesearch.org/ultimate-hike.
