Sep 29, 2003 By Amy Karpinsky 5 min read

When the news on the other end of the telephone came to Heather Lucy that her brother-in-law Timothy Aaron Lucy was gone, her first thought was that he was missing, not dead. “I asked where did he go,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking along those lines.”

When she finally realized that Aaron (as he was known) had not gone anywhere but had lost his battle with leukemia, her next thought was how difficult it would be to tell her husband, Christopher Lucy, that his older brother had died. Heather said she started shaking in the middle of holding a bottle and feeding her infant daughter, and she hung up on her mother.

Timothy Aaron Lucy, 25, died at his home in Bruceton Mills, W.Va., on Sept. 2, 31/2 years after he was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Before he was diagnosed with the cancer on April 18, 2000, neither Aaron nor Chris was sick a day, said their father, Timothy John Lucy.

“He had a sore throat on Saturday and on Monday he found out he had leukemia,” Heather Lucy said.

The close-knit family had gathered together days before to visit with Heather, Chris, their 31/2-year-old daughter, Devyn, and baby, Karsyn, who was born Aug. 25 in their Chalk Hill home. The first and only time Aaron got to see his youngest niece, he fell asleep on the couch because he was up until 6 a.m. at the races, Heather said. Aaron’s father and his bride, Dayna, were also visiting with their infant son, Aaron’s brother Nathan from Markleysburg.

Heather said they were all playing with the kids and less than 48 hours later Aaron was gone.

“It was just very unexpected. I always figured that when the time would come he would be in the hospital and not at home,” Heather said.

Despite two stem cell transplants, months of chemotherapy and numerous complications over the years, Aaron was still active, along with Chris, in racing front-wheel-drive racecars. Aaron had raced last year but his racing days ended when his car blew up.

At the end of May, Aaron, a union carpenter with Local 1010, had graduated from carpenter’s apprentice to journeyman. It took him five years to complete the four-year program. Aaron’s wife Joni, who celebrated her three-year wedding anniversary with Aaron on July 8, said he had worked a few days but usually was too tired.

Aaron, a 1996 graduate of Uniontown Area High School, had recently gotten his motorcycle license and was planning to purchase his first Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Thanks to a donation of 11.7 million stem cells from Chris, Aaron was able to receive two stem cell transplants. The first was performed Dec. 26, 2000, and the second in June 2001, shortly after the first transplant was deemed a failure. Doctors said the stem cell transplant was the best chance of recovery and Chris met all six criteria necessary for the procedure.

Although Heather said she knows of a woman who has survived AML for 17 years, only 25 to 30 percent of those who have the disease live more than five years.

At the time of his death, Aaron’s disease was in remission. Heather, a nurse, said the cause of death was listed as a complication of leukemia. “His organs just finally couldn’t handle it anymore, but the leukemia was not back,” she said.

Joni said she didn’t talk with Aaron about life without him before his death.

“It was a total surprise. I thought we had another 10 years,” she said.

While Aaron was able to complete school, he spent time in and out of hospitals, fighting infections. Last April, he was hospitalized for pancreatitis for five weeks. He also had two or three stays due to infections of his ports, as well as a yeast infection in his bloodstream.

Hospital stays aside, Heather said, Aaron continued to enjoy life.

“He spent every week at his brother’s race or some race. Even if he wasn’t racing he was still going. He had started to gain weight, look better, have a little more energy,” she said. “He took the attitude of live every day to the fullest.”

Joni said that after Aaron was diagnosed with leukemia, he stayed pretty much the same, except he spent more.

“It didn’t matter if he could afford it or not,” she said, noting that Aaron went through eight vehicles in three years.

Heather recalled a time several years ago when Aaron and Chris were in the kitchen in adult diaper boxes, pretending they were go-carts, making racing noises and knocking into each other.

“They had to race at everything they did, even if it was just boxes in the kitchen,” Heather said, noting that the hardest thing is that Aaron’s baby brother and niece won’t know him. “I keep thinking of all the stories to tell about him.”

For Aaron’s funeral, family and friends made sure it was exactly the way he would have wanted it: Everyone wore jeans and Harley Davidson clothes, and motorcycles were in the funeral procession.

Joni said Aaron was buried wearing jeans, a Harley shirt, a toboggan and sunglasses.

“It was just like he would have been dressed if he walked in the room,” Heather said.

After Aaron’s death, officials at Roaring Knob Raceway in Markleysburg put his disabled car, adorned with a wreath, on a flatbed truck and his friend carried an American flag around the track. Heather said at the time there was an upside-down rainbow in the sky.

“We felt like he was smiling down at us,” she said.

Now that Aaron is gone, his family will have to assess the cost of his illness and begin to move on.

Memorial contributions can be sent to the Timothy A. Lucy Leukemia Fund, P.O. Box 65, Chalk Hill, 15421.