A Final Thank You from Matt's Family

We are the family of Matthew Korfhagen, the author of this blog. We are sorry to inform Matthew’s readers and supporters that Matthew passed away on January 12, 2012 leaving a deep void in all of our lives. On behalf of Matthew, we wish to thank everyone for supporting Matthew’s efforts by reading this blog and sharing with Matthew your love, support and good wishes.
We also wish to publicly thank all of Matthew’s medical providers. We are amazed that there are people willing to dedicate their lives and give part of themselves each day in the support of the victims of this vile and insidious disease. We feel privileged that all of you gave so much of yourselves to make Matthew’s life better through the last six years.
This is the eulogy read at Matthew’s funeral mass. There are many more stories that we invite you to share. We wish to share with you a few of our memories of our son and brother.
May he rest in peace.

Eulogy

Read by his brother Joe:

Our family wishes to thank all of you for your love, support and prayers over these last six years. While we are deeply saddened by Matthew’s death, we are here to celebrate his life. Here are some of the “appropriate” stories, because you know Matt didn’t always think and speak “appropriately,” about Matt that made him so special.
Matthew John Korfhagen was born on October 12, 1983 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Matthew’s name means “gift of God”.
Trying to describe anyone is difficult. With Matthew you use these terms: smart, funny, passionate, loyal, helpful, trusting and mischievous. In addition, Matt was in every sense of the word a true non-conformist, who believed that rules should not apply to him.
For example, from the age of two Matthew dressed himself. His favorite clothes in the summer time were two non-matching rubber boots (one blue, one brown), no socks, tighty-whities with no pants, a flowered shirt and oversized sunglasses with one or both lens missing. Occasionally, he would top this off with either a cowboy hat or fireman’s hat. Matt would put these clothes on and then proudly go out in the yard to play and ride his tricycle. Any attempt to modify this outfit would be met with a resounding NO.
When the temperature got particularly hot, say in the mid 90s, Matt would change. He would put on a long sleeve shirt and long pants and would tell you with sweat pouring off his face that he wasn’t hot.
The best example of Matthew living by his own rules was when Mom became pregnant when Matt was around three. On being informed that he would be getting a little brother or sister, Matt who had just begun his GI Joe years, looked at his parents and said: “I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl because I’m going to call it Joe”. And so it happened that all my siblings were given biblical names… I was named after an action figure. Any similarity to a biblical name was purely coincidental.
When Matt was around four, my parents began noticing little things about Matt’s intelligence. For example, Matt has an older brother, David, who would have been in the third grade and an older sister, Laura, who would have been in the first grade. Both David and Laura were good at math and they loved demonstrating their math skills. My parents would quiz them on car rides or when they were doing homework. That made them happy until Matthew, who had never seen a math book or been in a math class, started answering the math questions before them. David now says it didn’t bother him because he appreciated having a calculator help him with his homework.
Then Matthew turned six and headed off to the first grade. At the first progress report from school, my parents received a note from the teacher which read: “Matthew is a joy in class. He always gets his work done so fast, that he has time to help me with the other students.” Shortly after that note and after testing confirmed Matthew’s advanced levels, Matt was advanced to the second grade.
Matthew’s helping others was a hallmark of his life. We have had many people tell us how Matthew was there to help them with their problems. When Matt was first diagnosed he took to emails to tell family members and friends not to worry for him, that while this disease was not what he wanted that it was now his life and that with God’s help he was going to fight it for as long as he could.
Later, as the disease progressed, Matt created a blog, which we have been told, served as an inspiration to many people struggling with their own health or other problems and Matt made friends through this blog throughout the United States.
In preparing for the funeral, we had to pick a gospel passage and we also picked a passage for memorial cards handed out at the funeral home. The passage we picked is from the gospel of Matthew and reads in part:
“Come to me, all of you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves.”
To us, this passage is the embodiment of everything Matthew stood for and how he lived his life.

Read by his sister Laura:

Of course, Matthew also had his mischievous side. When he was around five or six years old, Dad took us to shop for a birthday gift for Mom. Somehow we ended up in front of the video games at some store. Dad felt a tug on his shirt and looked down to see Matthew holding a video game named Jackal. Jackal was a war game involving tanks and explosions and other things of interest to a young boy but certainly not of any interest to Mom. Dad looked at Matthew and told him gently that today we were buying gifts for Mom’s birthday and Matt said: “But Dad, Mom told me she really, really wanted this game.” Being the dutiful husband, Dad bought the game wrapped it and gave it to Mom for her birthday. Mom opened the gift and stared at Dad with a look of bewilderment until Dad said: “Matt told me that you really, really wanted that game.”
In June of this year, Matt decided he wanted to start his Christmas shopping. He thought long and hard and decided that for Mom all of the kids would give her the identical book and that she would open six presents in a row each of which would be the same book. Of course the other kids quickly agreed and Mom got six cookbooks teaching her the basics of baking. This, for a Mother who has baked all of her life and has made too many wedding cakes in her life to even count.
In one of the many efforts to find a cure, Matthew agreed to try radiation treatment in Bloomington, Indiana. This treatment was brutal with many side effects. So to prepare, Matt went on-line and found a series of humorous t-shirts. Our favorite stated, “I’m just here to meet nurses.” Through the 33 radiation treatments he received, Matt wore his t-shirts faithfully.
When Matthew was in the hospital for a follow up to his fourth round of chemotherapy and to get results from his most recent MRI, the mood in the room was solemn because we were sure that the prognosis was grim. The doctor walked in the door and sat down across from Matthew with a look which confirmed that the news was very bad. Matthew looked at the doctor and before the doctor could speak, Matthew started cracking jokes. Matthew decided that Chuck Norris jokes were appropriate topics of discussion on this horrible day. But the jokes accomplished what Matthew wanted. The jokes changed the mood of the room, if only for a little while, and made it a little easier for the doctor to do his job.
We are convinced that Matthew is still speaking to us even after his death. Matthew passed away around 2:30 P.M. on the 12th. Shortly, after Matthew’s passing Dad looked out the hospital window to see that very large snowflakes had just begun falling. Dad said: “It’s snowing, there’s Matt.” Three other people have told us similar stories all without hearing Dad’s reaction to the snow. Without even knowing of Matt’s passage, a very dear family friend decided for the first time in her life to make a videotape of snowfall and send it to us, again not knowing that Matt had died. Finally, when we gathered to discuss funeral arrangements, Dad said: “We need to have a serious discussion” and at that precise moment, Matthew’s dog walked into the room chewing on a squeaky toy, at which we all laughed and said, “That’s Matt!”
The best way to end this story is with Matthew’s own words. You can find this in one of his early blogs. Matthew is speaking about the radiation treatment which he is about to begin and he states:
“I hope that I’m not just doing this in search of a cure. Yes it would be nice if it works and I continue to live a much longer life than previously expected, but I hope that people will treat this as a learning experience. I hope that everyone touched by my life will get something from me.
My favorite quote: “attitude is everything so pick a good one.” Please think about this when you start to worry about little things like cancer.”
Matthew embodied this quote, taking on the most difficult challenges with great strength and humor. And now Matthew, Gift of God, has returned to God, his spirit at peace, his life a beautiful gift to all of us who will carry him with us for the rest of our days.


In honor of Matt, we would also like to invite family and friends to share their own memories of Matt by posting them in the comments section below.