Twelve weeks ago, Grant Morgan delivered a moving eulogy at the funeral of his son Jack.
Jack had blogged about his battle with cancer to raise awareness of the condition but died, aged 22, after the cancer returned.
Now Mr Morgan is involved in a five-a-side football tournament being held at Mill Hill Power League this weekend in Jack’s name. The tournament has been organised by Jack’s best friend Teddie Levenfiche and 20 teams have been recruited. It will raise money for the North London Hospice, which helped Jack to manage his pain in his final days.
Mr Morgan, who struggles to talk about the “d word” in the context of his son, said the tournament was a way of furthering his legacy.
“I believe to live on in the hearts of others is not to die,” Mr Morgan told the JC.
Having shared a large part of his experience online, Jack realised there was a community of people with cancer who wanted to do likewise. To this end, he set up an app dedicated to cancer patients, Cnected. Mr Morgan, who lives in Barnet, says the “ultimate legacy will be to complete the technology that Jack started because he wanted to connect people all over the world who were going through similar things to him.”
His son — an engineering mathematics graduate from Bristol University — had more than 25,000 followers on Instagram and supporters including Manchester United star Paul Pogba.
He had wanted “to document his journey to enlighten, inform and educate friends and family about his ridiculously rare condition [undifferentiated carcinoma of the eye].
“What started as a cathartic local communication piece developed into a platform that ultimately inspired tens of thousands of followers through radio, TV, social and regular media.”
The footballing fundraiser is one of many family and friends are hoping to organise to back organisations that helped Jack.
Mr Morgan said the family was still “struggling in our own way. We are a very private family and when you have this high profile son who everyone knew and was supporting, that is hard.”
But it was a source of comfort that Jack had “inspired so many people online. I can’t tell you how many people have contacted me to say the difference he made.
“One lady from Michigan whose son was sick the same time as Jack got in touch to say her son had passed away on the same day. Jack’s account had helped her to understand what her son was going though and deal with everything that was happening. I can’t put into words what that feels like.”
He always knew “how brilliant” his son was and he was glad that thanks to the blog and the activities in Jack’s memory, “the whole world knows it too”.
