Family Relieved at Death’s End to Youth’s Pain

After watching Hendryck Mejia suffer through six years of painful leukemia, his mother on Thursday said the family was somewhat relieved by the death of a son who brought joy to other people’s lives while struggling to keep his own.

“He’s in a better place now,” Nellie Mejia said. “It’s a real comfort to see him with no more pain and no more leukemia.

“He never gave up. That’s one thing he never did. But after a while, you just can’t take much more of it.”

Hendryck Mejia, 18, died Wednesday at UCI Medical Center in Orange after a battle with cancer. Throughout it, he remained upbeat and friendly. Both his mother and a nurse who cared for Mejia since his illness was diagnosed as acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1983 said that even in the worst of times, he always had something encouraging to say to others.

Brave, Mature

“Everywhere he went, no matter how bad he felt, he had a smile on his face,” said nurse Carol Sekeris, who saw Mejia through the last day. “When I think about him, I think about how brave he was, how mature. He was always thinking about other people. He always thought of others before he thought of himself.”

His good will inspired about 150 Buena Park High School classmates and relatives to honor Mejia with a special graduation ceremony at the hospital on May 11, a month before the end of the school year, and before intensive chemotherapy was to begin.

“Wipe those tears from your eyes,” the graduate told the group, an indication of his determination to survive.

Mejia let everyone know that he wanted to be a doctor and devote his efforts to ending the disease that eventually claimed his life.

“I was very proud of him,” Nellie Mejia said, particularly of his will to lead and to help other people. “He touched many, many lives.”

During his illness, Mejia was able to visit Disneyland and attend the retirement party for Los Angeles Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But the best trip, his mother said, was to celebrate his 18th birthday on Dec. 27 with relatives in Honduras, courtesy of the Make-a-Wish Foundation, a nonprofit group that grants special wishes for young people with life-threatening diseases.

“He told every one of us how much he loved us,” Nellie Mejia said. “He said, ‘Thanks for being my family.’ I can’t tell you how much that meant to everybody.”

Although the death was difficult for her, her husband and their 13-year-old daughter, Michelle, Nellie Mejia said her son’s spirit made the ordeal easier.

“Sometimes it was very tough to go through it. You get so frustrated, you feel helpless. But when I remember his smile, it’s easier to get over it. Right now, I can still go on. But it will hurt more later.”

Sekeris said the mood was somber at the medical center Thursday.

“There are long faces in the hallways,” she said, beginning to cry during a telephone interview. “But we know he’s up in heaven with all the other kids.”

Sekeris said Mejia inspired other young people in the hospital, not to mention fellow nurses, some of whom shared his experiences with their families.

“He gave back more than we can possibly give him,” she said.

During treatment, Mejia always kept a positive attitude, the nurse said.

“There’s a little piece of me--it’s probably the heart--that wants to help others,” Mejia said in a story that appeared in The Times earlier this month. “I’d do just about anything to help out another person with whatever problem he may have. I’ve got that something in me.”

Memorial services are scheduled for 2 p.m. today at Loma Vista Memorial Park in Fullerton.