In Mithil’s Memory
After an unthinkable loss, a family finds a sense of purpose in giving back.
A foodie, Lego enthusiast, Star Wars fanatic, and starting pitcher on his baseball team, 12-year-old Mithil was both wise beyond his years and a goofball who could make anyone laugh.
When Mithil began walking strangely on a trip to visit family in India, his parents assumed he was jetlagged. But after a visit to a doctor, they rushed home to San Jose, where his terrifying diagnosis was confirmed: DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma), an aggressive brain cancer.
In the year and a half that followed, Mithil fought hard against the disease.
“If you came to our house during that time, you wouldn’t know there was a sick person there,” says Sarva, his mother. “Mithil didn’t compromise on anything — the food he ate, the places he wanted to go. His way of thinking was, ‘If my left hand doesn’t work, I’ll see what I can do with my right.’”
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