CNN Tells Touching Story about Dying Black Child

CNN tells the story about Charles Ray Daniel, a 15-year old boy who has gone through eight surgeries, a bone marrow transplant and a great deal of chemotherapy.  They talk about how the young man inspired everyone around him and will never be forgotten.
Forest Thompson lifts his 15-year-old son into a whirlpool. The boy can no longer speak. He can barely move. This is the last time Forest will ever hold him.

Silence — and memories — fill the room.

He’s the boy who traded his dream of meeting Beyonce for a final vacation with his brothers and sisters: “I want us to go on a big family trip, all of us together. Can we do that?”

The warrior who awoke from brain surgery, smiled and said, “When can I go back to school?”

The proud student who walked across the stage at 8th-grade graduation without his knit cap, revealing his surgical scars: “I don’t care what they say today!”

That boy, he’s slipping away.

Charles Ray Daniel endured eight surgeries, countless rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, and a bone marrow transplant to treat his brain cancer. For two years, no matter what was thrown at him, Charles figured out a way to smile and crack a joke. He’d bust into a Tyler Perry “Madea” skit. Or he’d quote Snoop Dogg: “Drop it like it’s hot!”

THE THOMPSON FAMILY

CHARLES DANIEL

The family comedian, Charles enjoyed quoting Tyler Perry, playing practical jokes and dancing. And, like so many teens, Charles loved Beyonce. His biological father, imprisoned for life, asked Forest and Tremica to raise him.

FOREST THOMPSON

The patriarch of the family, he resembles Atlas: strong, resilient, trying to carry family on his shoulders through the defining moment of losing Charles. Since his son’s death, he has started his own business to allow more time with family.

TREMICA THOMPSON

Tremica is the rock of the family who holds everyone together. “If I break, everyone breaks.” Of Charles’ terminal illness, she says, “We can’t change it. We can’t go around it. We have to walk straight through it together as a family.”

NATE KINSEY

The oldest of the siblings, Nate projects calm. He believes it’s his duty to remain strong for his brothers and sisters. His message to other siblings: “Why argue and fight? Life really is just short. You don’t have time for that.”

TRAYSHAUN KINSEY

He’s the Hollywood-handsome dancer, personable and fun. He and Charles shared a room and, his parents say, became so close they were like twins separated at birth. “We created a bond together. I like taking care of him.”

SHAUNEE THOMPSON

She is the outgoing singer with a sensitive streak. Charles protected her from annoying boys, saying, “Get away, get away, get away!” She misses him but is happy he “won’t suffer any more.”

ARIEL THOMPSON

The youngest in the family, Ariel doesn’t talk about her brother’s condition. She provides a note of levity, carrying a camera around George Mark and ordering people to smile. She hopes to become a photographer one day.

Forest and Tremica Thompson brought their son and his siblings to George Mark Children’s House, a pediatric palliative care and hospice center just outside Oakland, when caring for Charles at home became too daunting.

The place is beautiful, set amid plush gardens, high on a hill. No family wants to make the journey. Yet those who do discover their own resilience.

It’s Tuesday, January 11, 2011, their 16th day here.

Charles hoped to become a child psychologist. He wanted to help troubled kids. He knew what that life was like.

Charles fell into the family’s arms in November 2007. Tremica’s cousin, Charles’ biological father, had been imprisoned for illegal possession of a firearm, his third felony conviction in California. That madeRay Charles Daniel a lifer.

“Will you take care of my son?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Forest replied. “You always take care of family.”

Charles was 13, in foster care with the state. His father was in prison; his mother had abandoned him. He’d never known stability, never had a childhood.

 

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