Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 26, 1993 TAG: 9312260093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
G.T. Francis knew he was dying when he leaned over the Nativity set in the living room and - as he did every year - arranged the animals in the manger. As his family prepared for Christmas this year, the 18-year-old Roanoke County boy knew he would not be with them to celebrate.
But he never mentioned it.
The family knew, too. G.T. was born with Schwartz syndrome, a rare degenerative bone disease. But he and his family preferred to talk about life, even during their final days together.
"I think he was just overwhelmed with joy," said his mother, Carol, who sat by G.T.'s side until he died at Community Hospital early Dec. 12.
That's how people remember G.T. - as a happy, determined and compassionate teen-ager. Always ready with a joke. Always willing to listen to somebody else's problems.
And never complaining about his own.
Anybody who knew G.T. wouldn't have blamed him if he did.
The 4 1/2-foot, 52-pound teen-ager suffered from a disease so rare only a few dozen cases have Francis been reported. Nobody knows what causes Schwartz syndrome, a collection of disabilities that arrests muscle development and slows the growth of the skeletal system.
The disease caused G.T.'s eyelids to droop, his fingers to stiffen and his knees to lock. His hips and legs twisted in such a way that he could not sit comfortably; he had to lean against cushions instead.
There are no tests to detect Schwartz syndrome, only a variety of symptoms that lead to a clinical diagnosis. People with the disease are expected to live only into their late teens, because their twisted bodies place so much stress on vital organs.
"His little body was so contorted that his lungs couldn't develop," said Douglas Pierce, his doctor for the past 10 years. G.T., whose biggest fear was that he would be unable to breathe, eventually died of lung failure.
He left behind a trail of inspiration.
"He turned a weakness into a deep sense of power," said Father James Parke of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the church G.T. attended regularly for the past five years. "He had a way of making you feel very comfortable with his disability. He went out of the way to make you feel comfortable.
"The last thing he wanted was for people to feel sorry for him. Even in the hospital, he wanted to know how you were doing."
G.T. spent a lot of time in the hospital in recent months. But his condition was not always so severe. When he was a little boy, G.T. was able to run and play - with some difficulty - like all the neighborhood kids.
If there was a game of kickball going in the street, G.T. would join in. He rode a Big Wheel. When it snowed, he jumped on a sled.
"Anything that anybody else could do, he was going to try it," recalled his brother Randy, 21.
As G.T. grew older, his interests turned to citizens band radios and video games, just like his classmates at Mountainview Elementary and Northside Junior High schools.
He loved to tinker with gadgets, said his father, George, who remembered a time when he was trying to fix the sink and G.T. told him how to do it.
But most of all, G.T. wanted to drive.
"He was just infatuated with cars, period," Randy said.
When G.T. turned 16, he got his learner's permit and propped himself against a stack of pillows in his mother's 1974 Plymouth. With his cousin Yvonne Azar in the car, he drove up and down the driveway and around the back yard.
Azar handled the gears, which were too difficult for G.T. to shift. One day, she told him to drive out in the road and take off down the hill.
"We saw his mom and dad sticking their heads out the window," she said. "I told his parents, `This boy can drive better than either one of you all.' "
But G.T. didn't want his cousin to help him. He wanted to drive by himself.
"He wanted to be independent," Carol Francis said. "We never considered him physically challenged in any way."
So when an uncle gave G.T. his own car - a gray Chevrolet Celebrity - his parents didn't object. They watched, in fascination, as G.T. typed a flurry of letters to the Department of Rehabilitative Services and convinced the state to pay to convert the car to handicapped use.
"You tell him today he couldn't do something, tomorrow he'd master it," said Bill Chafin, the mechanic who fixed G.T.'s car whenever he had a problem.
Chafin did the work, but G.T. told him how.
"Most of the time, when G.T. came in he knew what he wanted," Chafin said. "He knew pretty well what the problem was, how much time it would take, and how much it was going to cost him. He was way ahead of me before he got here."
G.T. drove everywhere, according to family and friends. He drove around town with his cousins. He drove to church. He even drove to Virginia Beach.
Often, G.T. drove to David's Deli to visit co-owner Joan Thomas, who was married to one of his cousins. He always ordered the same thing - a turkey sub with tomatoes and mayonnaise.
Thomas said she sent the sandwich to G.T. during his stay in the hospital.
G.T.'s hospital room was always full of visitors, said Sarah Dooley, a pediatric nurse. Even though G.T. spent his last three school years studying at home, his classmates at Northside sent him a large scroll with all their names signed in glitter. G.T. would have graduated with them next spring.
Karen Alexander, G.T.'s home instructor, brought school work to the hospital so he wouldn't fall behind. When G.T. got tired, she said, he would ask, " `Do you mind if we stop working?'
"He was always polite and considerate, no matter how he felt," she said.
He may have been trying to live a prayer to St. Francis he kept framed on top of his dresser:
"O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand."
According to Chafin, he succeeded.
"I know a lot of times, he's come into our shop and maybe I didn't feel good, or whatever," he said. "And I could see G.T. driving in through the lot, and I'd sort of get a smile on my face. I'd say, `Here comes G.T. We'll have some fun now.' "
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