A brief, but beautiful life

Generosity of 11-year-old cancer victim lives on in gift drive

By Ed Nadolski

Editor in Chief

If there was one thing Shaymus Guinn couldn’t stand, it was the thought of all those children – cancer patients just like him – having to spend Christmas in the hospital.

Shaymus loved the holiday so much his father kept a Christmas tree perched year-round in the living room of his Burlington home – a reminder of all things bright and beautiful.

Shaymus, 11, has a similar affect on his father.

“He was the toughest kid, the bravest kid and the kindest kid,” Tony Guinn said of his son. “And he was my best friend.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Tony would go to great lengths to honor his son’s wishes and his memory.

Shaymus lost his four-year battle with Ewing’s sarcoma – an aggressive form of bone cancer – on Dec. 19, five days shy of his favorite holiday.

On Dec. 23, Tony and some friends made the trip to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa to deliver just a fraction of the hundreds of gifts donated in Shaymus’ name.

Because he has far too many gifts to take to the hospital in one trip, Tony plans multiple visits in the coming year to spread Shaymus’ wish to a growing roster of young cancer patients.

For Tony, there is no greater honor in life than to continue fulfilling the dream of his late son.

“(Shaymus) said to me, ‘You gotta promise me you’ll take gifts to the kids,” Tony said. “And I said we’ll do it.”

At the time, Tony thought he’d have Shaymus at his side to deliver the gifts. But he’s since realized that Shaymus extracted a promise from his father because he knew he wouldn’t likely be around to realize the dream himself.

The gifts – more than 450 collected by Shaymus’ classmates at Dyer Intermediate school and hundreds of others donated by friends, acquaintances and total strangers who happened to learn about Shaymus’ dream online – are a tribute to the selfless boy who poured more life into 11 years, 10 months, 19 days and 12 hours than others do in a century of living.

School is touched

“Shaymus left behind an inspirational story of courage, determination and spirit for us all to live by,” Dyer School Principal Joyce Uglow said. “Having Shaymus in our midst at Dyer helped our school community to see beyond ourselves.”

Dyer students learned of Shaymus’ death on Dec. 20 – a “very difficult day,” according to Uglow. A day later students and staff at the school spent their lunch periods wrapping and bagging some of the 458 gifts for the kids at Children’s Hospital.

Shaymus’ life and legacy has left such an impression on the students and staff at Dyer that they intend to continue the gift-giving project – now dubbed Shaymus’ Dream.

“A framed print of a painting done by Shaymus will be hung at Dyer in memory of Shay,” Uglow said.  “His artistic spirit will live on at Dyer as we continue the Shaymus’ Dream project in the years to come.”

According to Tony, that’s the type of impact Shaymus had on almost everyone he met.

“To a fault, the last person he ever thought about was himself,” Tony said. “Kids were drawn to him. He taught people how to love.

“‘Great,’ ‘good’ and ‘thank you’ were his three favorite things to share.”

Tony related the story of when Shaymus as a student at Waller Elementary School held the door for 300 classmates. Even when the principal told him he could release the door and go to his classroom, Tony remained at his self-appointed post and greeted every student that passed through the doors that morning. As if that wasn’t enough, he did it again after lunch recess.

What most amazes Tony is that his son nurtured his attitude toward life while going through “four years of hell.”

Battling cancer

Shaymus was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma at age 7 and didn’t take long before Tony and Shaymus’ mother Karla were pouring their lives into their son’s treatment. Tony and Karla have since divorced – with Karla moving to Union Grove – but the parents shared custody of Shaymus and remained devoted to their son and united in his cancer fight, according to Tony.

The family was living in west-central Illinois at the time and moved to Burlington to be closer to Children’s Hospital, where Shaymus was undergoing treatment.

Until this year, when he took the job as head men’s soccer coach at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Tony, was the women’s soccer coach at Division 1 Western Illinois University. That meant he had to commute four hours in one direction. There were many days, Tony said, when he drove four hours, worked as a professor and coach and then drove four hours back to Burlington.

The move also saddled the Guinns with two homes in the midst of a rotten real estate market.

Through it all, however, the strain Tony and Karla felt was nothing compared to the trials Shaymus was put through.

“He would just get done vomiting 15 times and he’d say he was (doing) great,” Tony said. “He never complained.”

Cancer treatment in several different forms became such a part of their lives that it became almost routine.

“It gets to the point that, as a parent, you can watch your kid vomit and be eating as you hold him on the bathroom floor,” Tony lamented.

Before his death, Shaymus had been through more than 40 surgeries, multiple rounds of chemotherapy and high-intensity radiation, a stem cell transplant and a bone marrow transplant.

Shaymus entered Children’s Hospital for the last time Dec. 14 and died five days later at noon.

Tony said he and Karla held Shaymus for hours afterward and gave him a bath before saying their final good-byes.

The boy genius

Now Tony holds tight to the memories of the selfless boy who also touched the world through his art and his inquisitive mind.

“He was truly a genius,” Tony said, noting that doctors had predicted Shaymus would have scored a near-perfect 34 or 35 on the ACT college preparatory exam.

Tony said his son was talkative and asked appropriate question on nearly every topic, often revealing knowledge and insights he gleaned from books and the Internet.

“I liked being around him,” Tony said. “He was like a dictionary and a thesaurus combined.”

Shaymus dreamed of being an architect, and assembled hundreds of Lego projects – now carefully displayed throughout Tony’s home – as a testament to his understanding of physical form and function.

He also displayed a precocious talent for art, with penguins as the favorite subject of his talented brush strokes.

Murals conceived and painted by Shaymus adorn the walls of Tony’s home.

While the art and the Lego projects are now prized possessions that will remain in tribute to Shaymus, Tony said he would have readily traded some of them for a chance to have Shaymus run with his classmates on the soccer field.

“It sucks because (all the art) is a representation of living in the hospital for four years,” Tony said.

The Lego projects and the paintings were therapy for a boy confined to a room and later a wheelchair by circumstances beyond his control.

While cancer slowly robbed Shaymus of his physical abilities, Tony said it never took his mind or his positive outlook.

Now, as he walks through his home with walls adorned by playful penguins and shelves bulging with intricate Lego projects, Tony said he realizes that Shaymus lives on in ways that few other 11-year-olds could.

Whether it’s through the gift-giving project, his art or his inspiring approach to life, Shaymus burned brightly during his relatively brief existence.

“He taught people how to love,” Tony said.