Glioma Cerebri is a very rare and dangerous type of brain cancer that 9-year-old Braxton Weidman had been fighting for 17 months.
In 2022, he lost his battle with cancer. He died at home with his family around him.
He went to school at Greystone Elementary School, where he was in the fourth grade. He liked to go outside, tell jokes, spend time with his family and friends, and play baseball.
His parents, Brandie and Chris Weidman, one sister, Lyla, and one brother, Cason, are the only people who still care about him.
On Saturday, February 5, 2022, the family met with friends from 9 to 10 a.m. at Asbury United Methodist Church, 6690 Cahaba Valley Road, Birmingham, AL 35242. At 10 a.m., there was a Celebration of Life for Braxton.
At the Southern Heritage Cemetery in Pelham, Alabama, the person was laid to rest.
According to a Facebook post by Braxton’s father, Braxton was at home with family and friends and his favourite stuffed animal, “Chubby Puppy.”
His father wouldn’t use the word “lost” because Braxton did die, but he thought that anyone who knew Braxton and his fight with the disease had won.
He thought they had learned something new about life and seen how fragile people are.
He agreed that, despite what people might see on TV with athletes or soldiers, people are fragile.
Braxton’s story was sad and beautiful at the same time. It taught people that life is short and that things that people sometimes think are important are often not.
His father said that their lives would never be the same again and that they would always have a huge hole in their hearts.
Braxton’s father slept like a baby the first night after Braxton died because he knew that Braxton would not have wanted him to live in pain and hate.
He thought that Braxton’s light gave the world more power than the hate and pain they felt, and he knew that Braxton would be proud of his family if they kept helping other kids with the same problem.
He said he knew there would be more families with no answers, who would lose their babies faster than they lost Braxton and miss out on the lives of their children.
He thought that they, as a family, had a duty to help these families and stop this disease from taking more children.
Braxton’s dad said that he was thankful for all the messages and phone calls they got. The amount of support they got was amazing.
He didn’t like the words “funeral” and “cancer,” and he didn’t think Braxton’s life was “over” because it wasn’t over yet.
He hoped that people wouldn’t think they were overreacting, but if they had seen what they had seen and felt how hard it was to save a child, they would be horrified.
He asked everyone to celebrate Braxton’s life on Saturday and support BraxHQ and the causes they had learned about over the past year and a half to help stop this illness from happening to more children.
Lastly, he said that this illness was a bastardization of humanity and that it had to end in the next 40 years. He and Braxton’s mother probably didn’t have much longer.