In the year 1969, man landed on the moon, and my 7-year-old brother was admitted to the children’s cancer ward at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Curing childhood leukemia in 1969 was truly a moonshot. My brother did not survive. My parents, in their unfathomable grief, gave consent to an autopsy. What doctors and researchers learned from the life and death of children like my brother helped contribute to a major breakthrough in the treatment of childhood leukemia shortly after. Their suffering, and the suffering of their families, did not go for naught.

When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, my brother dreamed he would grow up and walk on the moon too. Forever after, I have looked at the moon and thought of my brother’s unrealized dreams. But I have also thought of his realized legacy, that what he endured helped contribute to medical knowledge that made for the enduring lives of others.

This is what medical research is: a hope for life, and all the lives saved or enhanced for never giving up on hope.

My brother did not die for lack of hope. No one else should either.

Zoe Gaston
South Portland