10/01/2017
A brave and beautiful soul!! Please read Chris's story....
This is Michael's cousin, Christopher Roland, story..
HEART OF A FIREFIGHTER
The Chris Roland Story
by Ben Eisler, Newsletter Editor
Since the age of two, 29-year-old Chris Roland knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. "He used to dress up and make believe he was a fireman," says his mother Jeannine Roland, Volunteer Chairperson of the HDSA NJ Chapter Board of Directors.
Chris had a great uncle and two cousins that were FDNY, and every Sunday after mass, his grandfather would take him to visit firehouses. He would tour the trucks, put on gear, and talk to the firefighters. He spent weekends hanging around Rescue 5 and Engine 160 on Staten Island. "The guys took him under their wing," Jeannine says. "They were prepping him to be FDNY one day."
Chris was raised on Staten Island and moved to New Jersey in High School. He was an honor student, and at age sixteen joined the Fire Explorers apprenticeship program with the Old Village Fire Company. Two years later, in June of '06, he graduated from the Middletown Fire Academy and joined Station 11 as a volunteer. Shortly thereafter, changes began to occur that Chris always knew might come.
HD came from his dad's side. Chris was in 8th grade when his father went into a nursing home. His dad spent the next nine years there before passing away. Three of his father's five siblings have also passed from Huntington's Disease. And now Chris, who spent his life training to fight fires, is in the fight of his life.
Chris was majoring in criminal justice with a minor in fire science, but had to stop college. "He went from being an honors student to not being able to sit and focus," his mother says.
Today, he is legally blind, can't walk without assistance, and can't speak. But through it all, he has refused to let it get him down. "He doesn't complain. I mean never," Jeannine says. "It's courage. It's bravery."
Even after learning he had HD, Chris wanted to continue fighting fires; to keep helping people. He was the last person anyone could expect to keep giving of himself, and yet he kept giving. And while HD is too much for any one person to fight alone, Chris's tenacity has inspired countless others to join the fight - and that is the only way to defeat this awful disease.
Team Chris is consistently one of the state's top fundraisers, and will try to break its fundraising record again this year at the Edison Team Hope Walk on October 14th, "because we need a damn cure," Jeannine says.
Not long ago, the National Honors Society at Jeannine's elementary school (she is the Principal) held an educational event known as Pi Day in Chris's honor. Students got to throw pies at their math teachers if they raised $50. The kids rallied behind Chris, despite only recently learning of his story, and $5,800 went to the HDSA NJ Chapter.
Chris's relentless positivity also earned him a spot at Mets spring training last March, where he met nine players including Yoenis Cespedes and his personal favorite, David Wright. He took home Wright's bat, signed, as well as a game ball. "It was the most awesome hour and a half that he could have ever asked for. He just had a smile on his face from ear to ear," Jeannine says.
But the most remarkable moment came in the fall of 2015. That September, Chris achieved his dream. Due to his courage and bravery, the FDNY made him an honorary fireman. And he insists on fulfilling his duty.
"Every day, he wakes up, he's still a fireman," his mother says. "He puts on a shirt from one of the departments, still gets pages, still hears calls they go on at Old Village Firehouse. He is and I think always will be a member of that firehouse."
"It's bravery on a whole other level," Jeannine says. "And maybe that's what it was meant to be. He wanted to be a firefighter, he wanted to be brave and courageous and that's what this is. It's just not where he thought it was going to be."
Despite the many things the disease has taken from him, in a sense, Chris has won. Through it all, he has remained positive. And for other families fighting this disease, Jeannine has a message: "just don't give up."
Donations can be made in Chris's name to the HDSA NJ Chapter here.
A fundraising page for Mary Hardman
