Only the good die young.
Perhaps never more fitting are those words than Monday, with the passing of Jeff Gallant.
I met Jeff when he was a student at Regina High School, struggling to harness the athletic ability and coordinate the lanky frame he was gifted with.
An athletic specimen — towering height, agility, and leaping ability — volleyball came naturally to the Benoit’s Cove native, but he had a passion for basketball. Despite being a stand-out striker on the volleyball court, Gallant wanted to work hard to hone his physical gifts on the basketball court.
Perhaps that provides a little insight into the type of person he was, not one to just settle for the easy path when there was something else which may have meant more.
The hard work paid off athletically for him and he excelled as a star on the MUN volleyball team following high school. Even then, when he realized he wanted more, he switched sports and played his heart out for the Sea-Hawks basketball team.
Even in the early years of knowing Jeff, I saw there was something more in this young boy. It was easy to see the passion and zest he had for sports, and I discovered it was the same way he lived life.
I remember sadly the first time I heard about his cancer, Ewing sarcoma gave him his ultimate test and final battle. He fought it for years, vowing he would win the fight. Nobody questioned otherwise, he had been able to do everything else in his short existence.
“It was a shock at first and it was hard to accept, but there was never really a time where I kind of thought this is a life-threatening disease and this could be the end for me and stuff like that,” Jeff was quoted in The Western Star in October 2009. “I have never actually thought that. I have always been saying I am going to beat this it’s just going to take a little bit of time.”
I never doubted it. However, time was something he was never given enough of.
Every time I heard news, it was not good, yet he kept an upbeat attitude. Each time I ran into him and chatted, he never gave any indication he was giving up the fight. He lived every single day.
Every person I have ever talked to about Jeff had nothing but great things to say, and that was long before the illness began consuming him (if that was ever the cause, it was only physically).
He was a gentleman as a kid, no doubt testament to the great job his family did of raising him, and he was an even better man as an adult. One can only wonder what kind of life he would have led, the countless people he would have touched.
When the good die young, you can only remember how great it was to have known them for that short time they were here. Rest in peace Jeff. The world was a better place with you in it, and it will continue that way through all those who knew you.
Cory Hurley is a reporter/photographer with The Western Star newspaper.
He can be reached at hurleysports@hotmail.com.
