Last Saturday evening I enjoyed a poignant moment I thought worthy of sharing with you.
During last season a fella named Heath Beardwood started shooting some amazing photographs during some of our senior games at Brindisi St. He would reappear very late in the day brandishing some prints of a “specky” or a classic action shot and throw to Dale Collins a disc containing many images for inclusion on the club website. Heath continued this throughout the season and some of the images he produced in the grand final will be treasured for a lifetime. Never once did he ask for reimbursement as he said “it was his hobby”.
During the summer months our senior coach Luke Beveridge and myself learned that Heath had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. This news was difficult to initially comprehend as Heath is only a healthy,intelligent young man. For example I discovered late year he was attempting to launch free laptop computers into the impoverished third world countries. This was his pet project and I recall Rupert Murdoch at a packed press gallery endorsing it on a rare visit to Melbourne. When explaining the concept to me one night I said to Heath, “you’ll make a fortune out of it”. He replied he wasn’t interested it was a non profit concept and he just wanted to allow the underprivileged the opportunity to see the world wide web.
Unfortunately Heath’s idea was put on the back burner as his personal battle with illness was about to begin. After the initial tests confirmed the presence of a tumour Heath underwent 8 hours of corrective surgery and then endured months of Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy. Throughout this period even when he was clearly very ill, he never complained instead offering an insight into his journey that was both informative and inspiring. During this time I said to him that when he recovered sufficiently I would buy him a glass of wine and celebrate as I had little doubt in his ability to beat the illness.
Last Thursday Heath visited his specialist unsure of what lay ahead of him and received the results he deserved when he was informed that the cancer had not spread to any other part of his body. He is not completely out of the woods yet and will have follow up test over the next couple of years but he has commenced the road to recovery and is already putting on some kilo’s.
The reason I thought I would highlight Heath’s story is that I believe at times we can lose perspective and take for granted the opportunities that life presents us daily. We sometimes take this into the weekend when we enjoy club’s environment yet complain about trivial things because we have a platform to do so.
On Saturday night I bought Heath a glass of St Bedes Mentone Tigers finest red wine. He enjoyed it and so did I!
If you would like look more into Heath’s interesting story go to www.myspace.com/hbeardwood
Please keep open these dates for upcoming events.
Saturday 11th August. The Seniors (2nd) will take on Old Essendon (1st) for top spot. We need the biggest crowd of the year to pack Brindisi St and cheer home our boys.
Saturday 1st September. The club will host a luncheon for all club members. The format will be relaxed with finger food and drinks available between 11.30 am 2pm. The senior team will play their last home and away game so it will give everyone the opportunity to get together and celebrate the 2007 season. I will arrange for more information to be posted in the clubrooms outlining the function details.
Saturday 1st September. If you are unable to attend the luncheon please come along to our end of season evening function. More details shortly.
Best of luck to you all this weekend, please remain disciplined and enjoy our great game.
Go Tigers
Matt Beasley
President