SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — We are coming up on the one year anniversary of the death of 13-year-old Spencer Thorsland.
The Brandon teenager died in January after a lengthy battle with cancer.
He invited KELOLAND News to follow his courageous battle up until they day he died.
His family and friends stood by his side the entire way.
Friday night they’re going to do something special to honor Spencer and remember a young life taken way too soon.
If you remember, one of our stories was when all of Spencer’s classmates joined him at the theater to see the movie ‘Wonka.’
Tomorrow will be exactly one year since that outing.
His mom says that was one happy day.
“I think I just feel it so much still and I can see him and see his smile and I just see him being happy until the end, you know things were dwindling, but he never complained about pain, you would have never known anything was bothering him,” Lori Huml said.
A few short weeks later, Spencer died on January 8th; which just so happened to be his brother’s birthday.
“My brother Spencer was sick, better yet, he had cancer,”
Ranger wrote this essay for school about Spencer dying on his birthday.
He says it was a day he was supposed to be celebrating;
“C’mon it’s my birthday not Spencer’s, he always gets so much attention because he has cancer, I get it, but it’s my birthday,” Ranger said.
but turned out to be one of the worst days of his life.
“I saw Spencer, he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing, his eyes were bloodshot, he had dry blood on his nose, he had died on me, I fell to the ground crying my brother had died and I was so worried about presents when this happened,” Ranger said.
To keep Spencer’s memory alive, the family has started a foundation in his name. Its called ‘This Is The Way’ a non-profit to raise scholarship money for students going into the medical field.
“I just believe that the cure to cancer is out there somewhere and we need the next generation to help plant some of those puzzle pieces and find that cure, so we want to support those who are going into the medical field,” Lori said.
Spencer always hung onto the word ‘Eventually’ saying eventually there would be no more pain.
That word is now painted on one of the walls inside their home and will also be printed on several items they plan to sell to help raise money for the foundation.
Tomorrow night, they plan to honor Spencer in another way by going to the movie ‘Mufasa.’
Just like the first time, they thought it would be fun to invite just family and a few friends.
“And that quickly became ‘well maybe we can fill the whole theater with Spencer supporters, friends, and people from the community’ and so we have bought all the tickets for that showing,” Lori said.
So now they are inviting anyone who wants to come help fill the theater one more time and make it a happy day.
“A day to remember spencer,” Lori said.
There are tickets still available if you’d like to help honor Spencer, click here to contact Lori Huml and get more information.
