Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 18, 1993 TAG: 9302180265
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
MATT'S LEGACY: WORDS BY WHICH TO LIVE, DIE
I never knew Matt Hancock, but reading these words his mother wrote for the Virginia Tech Collegiate Times editorial page, I get a pretty clear image of the 22-year-old student journalist:He was complex and intense, handsome and fun. He dreamed and hoped. He was confident and scared. He loved his ragtop, his mountains and his Floyd County roots. He was a drummer - could tune a tympani by ear. He won downhill races on the snow and skied every cove of Smith Mountain Lake. He dug chicks and was a feminist. He read William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Susan Faludi, Louis L'Amour and John D. MacDonald. He loved tweeds and tuxes and his do-rag. He struggled with being an idealist as well as a realist, and he finally has peace.
Matthew Lee Hancock, Roanoke native and Cave Spring High School graduate, died Jan. 25 from a cerebral aneurysm. Doctors said he was most likely born with the condition.
Features editor of The Collegiate Times, Matt had just finished editing the "etc." section of the paper when he drove a fellow editor home at 4 a.m. and collapsed on her apartment floor. Roughly 12 hours later, he was pronounced brain dead at Montgomery County Regional Hospital.
In the interim, dozens of people came to say good-bye - his parents, his brother, friends, roommates, teachers, administrators.
Students made a schedule so they could sign up in shifts to pray for Matt. The entire newspaper staff met beside his intensive care unit bed to plan the next issue of the Times. His obituary ran on its front page.
Anyone who wanted to say good-bye did so. It was important to his mother, Bunny Hancock, "to teach his friends how to give up," she said. "I was responsible for this life. I had to be there for the kids. I had to help."
Remember what Mom says: CARPE DIEM. But stay straight and say "no." Take a friend's keys, use a condom, vote, do your homework, clean your room, do your laundry and drive safely. Sign your organ donor card and give life.
Within an hour of brain death, Virginias' Organ Procurement Agency was on the scene, and surgeons from University of Virginia and Duke University hospitals began arriving to harvest Matt's organs.
A 57-year-old Blacksburg man with severe heart dysfunction received Matt's heart. A 49-year-old Loudon County man with hepatitis C got his liver.
Matt's left kidney and pancreas were given to a 49-year-old Charlottesville man with diabetes and kidney disease. The right kidney was transplanted into a 51-year-old Maryland man. One cornea went to a 29-year-old Danville man, the other to a 54-year-old Richmond woman.
About 2,000 people came to say good-bye to Matt at wake and funeral ceremonies. Services were open-casket, in part to dispel the major myth surrounding organ donations: Matt's body was not cut up in pieces; the organ-removal procedure was less disfiguring than some bypass surgery operations.
Bunny Hancock dressed her son in a brown suit and cream-colored shirt, his Mickey Mouse boxer shorts and his brother Will's cowboy boots. She put his ever-present sunglasses in his hand, and friends tucked into his casket other sentimental objects - Kerouac's "On the Road," rubberbands for his ponytail, a tape of his favorite Grateful Dead tunes.
His roommate left the larger half of a stick of chewing gum. The two had frequently split pieces of gum, with Matt usually getting the shorter end of the stick.
Thank you Beth [Thompson, the CPR-administering editor], police and the rescue squad for giving us a heartbeat so we could send him along. Thank you Tech - the administration and staff - for what you did for our child and for us. Thanks to the Corps for playing "Taps." We said good-bye. And finally, to all of you fifth-year seniors: Follow your bliss. Hang in. You'll get there.
A bill for Matt's Healthy Virginians Blue Cross insurance came in Bunny Hancock's mail last week.
More than 300 condolence cards have also arrived, and there have been so many phone calls that she finally had to turn on her answering machine for a break.
Bunny Hancock has spent the past few weeks reading over Matt's writings - his myriad journals, poems, short stories and newspaper articles. A series of Matt's Hunter S. Thompson-esque stories, titled "Beer and Loathing," tops his newspaper clipping stack.
To please his parents, Matt started out at Tech majoring in business. A few majors later he discovered journalism, working 60 to 70 hours at the student newspaper, often to the detriment of his academic classes. When a class got boring, he flipped his notebook and worked on a poem or story instead.
Matt was a fifth-year senior with a 2.2 grade point average when he died. When Bunny Hancock tells his friends to follow their bliss, she means for them to please themselves, not their parents. To help out, she's begun a scholarship for fifth-year seniors interested in writing and journalism.
"We want to reward children who have the courage to change their minds," she said. Checks can be sent to the Virginia Tech Foundation, c/o the Matt Hancock Memorial Scholarship, 201 Pack Building, Blacksburg, Va. 24061.
"He was a tremendous kid, and I'm gonna miss him a lot, but he left life and words," she said. "He left a tremendous legacy."
Bunny Hancock wants to get the word out: Get out your driver's license. Sign the donor card on the back and get two witnesses to sign it, too. Tell your family. (For more information, call the Virginias' Organ Procurement Agency at 989-3411, 1-800-233-8672.)
Ten people are living better, longer lives because of Matt Hancock. Untold others will get some monetary encouragement to enter journalism - a field lacking in the kind of dedication and quirky creativity that Matt Hancock was sure to bring to it.
I never knew Matt Hancock, but reading through his journalism and fictional writings, I think he would've been a helluva good writer. A real Hunter S. Thompson . . . with heart.
Someone who could seize the day and live life to its fullest, but who also knew how to give it back.
Matt's mom is right. His legacy is tremendous.
Beth Macy is a features department staff writer. Her column runs in Thursday Extra.