Meg's Story...Press Clippings

Huntsville Times, The (AL)
February 2, 2008
Section: Local News
Edition: 2
Page: 1A

 

PATRICIA C. McCARTER Times Staff Writer  

Ex-UA student fought cancer with hope and dignity Don't wear black when you go to Meg Ingram's funeral.

She didn't want that.  Wear pink - her favorite color. She'll be wearing pink, a cheerleading sweatshirt her dad ordered for her a couple of weeks ago after he saw her looking at it online in her Hampton Cove bedroom. Or wear crimson. That's the color of the University of Alabama, which the 21-year-old loved so much, a university where she cheered for almost two years until the brain cancer made it impossible, the university that presented her this week with an honorary degree.

Even though she was in a coma, her family knows she knew the diploma was there in her hospital room. We believe she was aware of a lot that went on those last few days," said her father, Lance Ingram. "She knew how many people were praying for her and how much everyone cared. That helped her be strong."

The Huntsville High honor graduate died Friday morning at Huntsville Hospital, about a year and a half after she was diagnosed with the illness. Even while on chemotherapy, for months she continued to cheer and go to class and maintain a 4.0 average.

But she was more than a petite, pretty cheerleader who made good grades and was able to read by the time she was 4. "She was one of those people who never gave up hope for herself or for anybody else," said Debbie Greenwell, the cheerleading coach at Alabama. "She was beautiful, sweet, talented, good. She was the complete package. She had everything."

After friends and neighbors blanketed parts of town with "Pray for Meg" signs, Ingram's story captured the attention of the city. She was honored this past fall with one of Intergraph's "Gardens of Hope" at the Huntsville Botanical Garden. In August, she was an honoree of the American Cancer Society's Summer Lights Celebration for her continued zeal for living despite the disease.

"Everybody has to deal with different things," Ingram said last summer before the Cancer Society gala. "I have a choice: I can either deal with it or not, and so I deal."

The pastor of Cove United Methodist Church - where Ingram's visitation will be today from 4 to 6 p.m. and her funeral will be Sunday at 2 p.m. - said the way the young woman and her family dealt with her illness was admirable. "It was a privilege to be close to them and watch them as they navigated through this past year and a half," Pastor John Tanner said. "I have been completely amazed at the way they've functioned as a family, leaning on each other and propping each other up. Their faith has been just unbelievable."

But Ingram's father said they couldn't have been so strong if it wasn't for the knowledge that so many people were wishing them well. "We're OK," her dad said of himself, wife H.J. and daughter Madalyn. "And the fact that we're OK is the work of the prayers of people who are holding us up. We're doing well because of them."

Her battle with cancer was unfortunately familiar to the Ingram family. Her father said he was diagnosed with the disease twice in the year before his daughter got ill. He has two sisters who have been treated for cancer in the past three years, and five years ago his oldest sister died of the same kind of brain cancer his daughter had.

"Meg made the statement that my mother, who is truly the matriarch of this clan, showed her the way to deal with this," the father said. "You do it with dignity."  She filled her life with as much living as time would allow. In November, she and her dad made a trip to Egypt, a place that had fascinated her since she was a child.

Two weeks ago, she and her father went to Tuscaloosa so she could see her former teammates in a dry run of the routine they'd perform for a national competition. Ingram laughed with her friends - both when she was in the hospital and when she was at home - up until the very end, trying to keep them at ease and peace with what was happening to her.

And on Sunday, even while languishing in a drug-induced coma to relieve her pain, she found a way to be gracious. Her father said his wife was by her hospital bed, holding her daughter's hand when she saw the young woman raise her hand to her face. She leaned in and asked her, "Sweetheart, are you in pain?"

Ingram then put her hand on the eye mask that was shading her eyes from the light. She pushed up the mask, looked her in her mother's eyes and said, "I love you, Mama."

"And those were her last words," her father said. She went back to sleep, and Friday morning, she was gone.

The family asks that donations be made to the Clearview Cancer Institute or American Cancer Society.