What’s a reporter supposed to do when a mother breaks down crying on the phone during an interview?
It happened when Erin Brande was asked why she couldn’t lease, rent or sell her home to satisfy CIF transfer requirements after the family moved from Palm Desert to Temecula following the death of her youngest teenage son, Johnny, to cancer in December?
“Because everything there reminds me of Johnny,” she said.
My reaction was silence and determination to make sure common sense prevailed to make sure her senior son, Jake, a top pitcher who transferred from Palm Desert to Rancho Christian, had this continuing stress resolved after an already awful ordeal engulfed him and his parents for months.
Fortunately, the Southern Section worked it out and deserves praise for finally confirming eligibility because the circumstances clearly did not involve falsification of an address, no movement for athletic reasons and was a bonafide change of residence to get a fresh start for everyone involved.
Imagine the stress level this family has endured going from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital, while doing everything possible trying to find a cure for their son. And how about the oldest, Jake, a 6-foot-7 senior pitcher headed to Cal Poly, using sports as his distraction from the pain of seeing his brother fighting until the bitter end.
“Just take it one day at a time, wake up and do whatever I had to do,” Jake said.
On Monday, Jake made his first baseball start of the season on the mound for Rancho Christian, playing the sport he hopes to keep playing for years. He struck out seven in four scoreless innings. He’s such a good athlete that he was a star for Palm Desert’s basketball team until shutting everything down after the family move.
Now he’ll be able to remember his brother as motivation and inspiration and the family can rally around him as they try to heal from a tragedy they had no control over.
Every time he steps on the mound, “it’s like an out, somewhere to go that takes you from reality a little bit,” Jake said.
Illness comes whether you are poor or rich, whether you are good or bad. You seek answers, you trust your faith, your world is turned upside down, but you look for ways to keep going in the face of terrible adversity.
Sports is what’s going to give this family a path to go forward while remembering the good days of the past. Jake has a tattoo on his left arm, “Long Live Johnny.”
The family is thankful that UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky wrote the initials for Johnny on his cleats. They had met at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center as Johnny underwent treatment. Erin said she was honored “how great Roch was with him.”
This is going to have a happy ending despite the devastating days of December and before. Teenagers are resilient when they are backed by people who love them unconditionally.
The lessons learned and fond memories of brother helping brother are going make Jake even stronger as an adult and beyond. The brothers used to play golf together, and Johnny kept beating Jake.
“He was amazing,” Jake said.
Jake will have lots of people rooting for him, including his parents, who have done everything in their power to help their children during good and bad times.
Thank goodness for sports. It’s a vehicle that can produce moments of happiness for families in need of a respite from real-life issues.
“It kept his mind off cancer,” Erin said of Johnny, who threw out the first pitch at a Dodger game for cancer awareness. “It helps balance a life of sadness.”
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