Johnny Doak 9/16/2010
University of Maine personal
I have lived my life in the shadows. Having a brother who on senior awards night got the most awards in one night by one student is a hard thing to live up too. My brother has been an amazing student in his life and an even better overall person outside of academics. He has experienced more things in his life at 17 than most people will in an entire lifetime. I said I have lived my life in the shadows because I have lived in my brother’s footsteps my entire life.
My brother first job was scooping ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s, his second job was lifeguarding at the Glens Falls YMCA, and his third job is working at Camp Double H Hole in the Woods Ranch. My second job was scooping ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s because my brother dropped my name, I never filled out an application. My third job was lifeguarding at the Glens Falls YMCA because my boss loved my brother and found out that I am a lifeguard, and needed a new guard to replace my brother; I filled out the application after I had the interview. My latest job was working at Camp Double H Hole in the Woods Ranch, now this time I have to give credit to my mother, with my brother in mind.
My brother was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, a rare childhood cancer in his lower back at the age of 12. My mother wanted my brother to go to Camp Double H to get away from all the stress in his life for just one week. My brother was kicking and screaming in the car ride to camp and hated my mother for forcing him to come to camp. When my mother came to get him on the last day he was crying because of the connections he had made with his fellow campers and the amazing counselors that work there, he didn’t want to leave. My brother then 4 years later applied to work at camp as a counselor so he could be apart of the magic at camp, two years after that I was applying to be part of the magic. Then just to go above and beyond, for all the time he spent in the hospital in that year of his treatment, all my brother wanted was to be able to hold onto something when he was scared. He had the idea to start a program call “Tim's Build-A-Bear Who Cares.” In the first year of this my brother was still in middle school and he took a volunteer group down to Albany to the Build-A-Bear Workshop and made about 100 bears. The club and my brother then went to Albany Medical Hospital, where my brother got his treatment, and donated the bears to the cancer child center and when each kid gets diagnosed they receive a bear to hold onto when they are scared or lonely or sad or just need something to hold onto. Now I am the Co-President of this program and my brother and I work together constantly to raise money for these children.
In my brother’s senior year of high school he volunteered on the Glens Falls Hospital Medical Mission in Guatemala, which I am going on with my mom in October of this year. Now I'm not saying that I have followed in my brother footprints for everything he has done, but when your brother is known by random people it is hard not to take the ideas of most of the things he has accomplished.
I said I have lived my life in the shadows, but in reality I have lived my life in the brightest of all light possible. When we were little my brother and I fought constantly, I can recall stuffing a sock in his mouth and accidentally ripping out his braces. Now that we are older and closer in maturity levels we can have a two minute conversation turn into hours. Timothy David Doak is my superhero, my role model, my mentor, and most of all he is my brother.
