By GREG JOHNS
P-I REPORTER
Eight-year-old boys should never die. They should be forever running, chasing, playing, laughing.
They should be doing everything Kyle Roger did every day of his life, until the cancer in his brain finally overcame the spirit that pushed him to the very end Saturday morning.
Two years ago, I went to write a story on a little 6-year-old from Bellingham who wanted to meet Washington quarterback Jake Locker. At the time, Locker had yet to play a college game, but he was happy to accommodate a Huskies family from his hometown.
Turns out, that was a day to treasure. Locker was tremendous, a gentle soul willing to run around the turf at Husky Stadium playing catch, allowing Kyle to chase and tackle him, walking out of the tunnel hand-in-hand with Kyle and his brother, Nicolas, just like a pregame ritual, eventually finding out where Kyle sat in the stands on Saturdays and promising to point to his new friend the first time he scored a touchdown in a real game.
Locker was pure gold. But Kyle? This kid was the real star.
You’d never have known such a bright little boy was sick, that an insidious, inoperable cancer called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma was already weaving its way into his brainstem.
Kyle Roger had something special. An unpretentious spirit. A contagious enthusiasm. A natural ease uncommon for a child his age, or for most people, come to think of it.
This was a youngster who months later, at another visit to a UW practice, walked up to the intimidating Tyrone Willingham, stuck his hand out to introduce himself and then asked if it was OK if he could play with his quarterback.
That’s just the way he was. Happy to see you. Happy to be alive. And it was a spirit that touched everyone who met him.
“Whether he knew it or not, he was somebody I looked up to,” Locker said Sunday, a day after learning of his young friend’s death. “He was only 6 or 7 years old, but just how he went about living his life and how he treated people, he had a huge impact on me. He was somebody I really admired and respected.
“It doesn’t seem fair that a kid like him with such a great attitude and with so much life ahead should be cut short like that. It’s hard to wrap your head around why stuff like that happens.”
Locker formed a bond with Kyle from that first meeting and kept in touch. The two got together when the family came to Seattle for medical treatments. Locker played video games with the youngster, went to lunch, hung out whenever possible.
Six months after their initial meeting, Locker lived up to his promise, pointing up at Kyle after scoring his first Husky Stadium touchdown on a run against Boise State. And for more than a year, things seemed to be going amazingly well for the little fellow with the big heart.
His mom, Christin Willhite Roger, had one goal. She wanted her son to experience all of life he could in whatever time he had.
One of the first things was meeting Locker. But it didn’t end there. The family took Kyle to Disneyland and Hawaii. Went skiing, rode horses, swam with dolphins. Became Lucky Dawg for a day at a Huskies game, going out to midfield for the coin toss with the team captains.
In between school and vacations came constant trips for radiation and chemotherapy and MRIs of the brain to measure the disease’s progress, the kind of reality checks that stuck in the minds of everyone watching this family’s delicate journey.
After almost two years, Kyle’s body could no longer take the endless treatments and his “brain bump” as he called it, began returning at a rapid rate.
Unchecked, cancer can be quick and cruel. This past Christmas break, Kyle walked away from his elementary school in Bellingham on his own power. A few days later, he was in a wheelchair. He started losing his hearing, his sight, his muscle control.
Locker visited the family home over the holidays.
“Physically it was a lot worse,” Locker said. “You could tell things were wrong. But his attitude never changed. He always believed he was going to get through it and it was going to go away.
“That’s one of the things that’s changed how I look at life. He was so positive about everything, even facing the odds he did. Looking at that, it’s unbelievable how people complain about the things they do.”
Firefighters built a wheelchair ramp at the house. Neighbors helped light up the house like Clark Griswold in the movie “Christmas Vacation,” wanting Kyle to feel the love he deserved.
Just 10 days ago, the Squalicum High School basketball team invited him to be honorary captain for a game, taking him in the locker room, helping him shoot baskets from on top of shoulders, high-fiving the youngster who’d once excelled on his own at soccer and skiing but now could no longer walk or talk.
Kyle and his family fought on. They communicated by writing on a white board. They kept spirits up by playing the board games he loved. They continued to treasure every moment, every hug, every mind-numbing challenge until the battle ended Saturday morning with his family at his side less than three weeks after his 8th birthday.
It’s hard to imagine the pain of losing a child. Nobody should go through that struggle. None of us can understand why a little boy must pay that price.
But having met Kyle, having kept in touch with his family and followed their fight, it’s possible to see how one little man can touch a tremendous number of lives.
When Christin Roger told a co-worker a few months ago how much her son loved getting Christmas cards, the tale made its way to a reporter from the Bellingham Herald, who wrote a story that wound up getting passed on to several restaurant chains.
Before long, Kyle was flooded with thousands of cards from across the country, including one from the president of the United States. It’s impossible not to root for a youngster fighting for his life, whether you’re Jake Locker or George Bush.
And while thousands of children deal every day with equally difficult circumstances, no one should begrudge the attention Kyle received. His family succeeded in filling his short life with every possible highlight in their quest to make the best of the worst possible circumstance.
And in return, this bright little boy managed to reach so many people who slowed their own worlds long enough to see and remember what really matters.
“He thought he was getting a chance of a lifetime to run around Husky Stadium and hang out with me,” Locker remembered of his first meeting. “But by the end of that day, I knew I was the lucky one.”
To those who met him, Kyle Roger was a shining star. Perhaps now more than ever.
P-I reporter Greg Johns can be reached at 206-448-8314 or gregjohns@seattlepi.com.
