In the spirit of full disclosure, I have never met Matt Henkel in person. I had the honor of speaking with him on the phone once, but that single moment was enough. Once the superintendent and general manager of PrairieView Golf Club in Byron, Illinois, Matt displayed the kind of personality and openness - at a time when he was most vulnerable - that drew you in and made you feel as if you had known him forever.
His candor during a time of great personal tragedy was not a typical conversation one has with a stranger. But Matt was not like most people. In a time when "me, myself and I" seem to take center stage for too many, Matt chose to share his life - and death - in a public forum so that others could benefit from his experience. And we are better for it.
As children, we believe that heroes largely are make-believe characters from comic books, cartoons and television shows. In reality, fictional characters like Superman exist only in our imagination, while real-life heroes walk among us every day. We just have to look for them.
Matt Henkel, as far as I know, never wore a cape and he never leapt a tall building in a single bound. But for more than a decade he took on something much more imposing, and he handled it in a way that made him as much of a hero as anyone could hope to find, or emulate.
For the past 13 years, Matt battled brain cancer. That courageous struggle became increasingly challenging during the past year-and-a-half, when, after it appeared he might have beaten his adversary, it returned with a vengeance in the fall of 2019. By now, everyone knows Matt lost that struggle on Wednesday. He was 42, and left behind a wife, Cammie (shown here with Matt); three children, Ashton, Claire and Mara; and a list of life lessons that undoubtedly will help those who followed his story put their own lives into perspective.
Throughout the duration of his fight, Matt never gave in or gave up against a foe that gives no quarter, and he took a lot of us along for the ride by chronicling his experience online. Eventually, he resigned his position at PrairieView to devote his full attention to what literally was a fight for his life. Until his death, his very public message in the face of unbeatable odds was one of hope and love, and the example he set for his family and for all of us has been an inspiration and a reminder to never give up and to waste nary a minute of time we have with loved ones.
That is Matt's legacy, and that is heroic.
Through his online journal, Matt shared intimate details of his fight, from trips to the University of Wisconsin Hospital to the UCLA Medical Center and finally into Hospice.
As we watched a man awaiting certain death cram in as much quality time as possible with his family, Matt's journey is a sobering reminder of how tenuous life is and how each of us would be better if we heed his message.
Although Matt is gone, his final moments and the enormity of his experience live on in a haunting photograph of three loving children huddled around their dying father. It is impossible to look at that image and not be moved to heart-wrenching emotion and empathy for his children who undoubtedly knew the outcome that awaited their dad. One can barely imagine their grief as they begin a journey without a father who, at 42, was taken far too soon. The scene is as precious as it is intense, and it symbolizes a deeply personal experience those children will cherish forever.
Equally great had to be the sadness Matt felt knowing that he was leaving his family behind after his very public fight, while privately accepting he was powerless to change the outcome. It is the nature of fathers to be a rock, to provide for their family a feeling of safety and security and a sense that you have everything under control - even when you do not.
Matt had been cancer free for five years when he began experiencing headaches and dizziness in October 2019. He returned to the University of Wisconsin where his neurosurgeon, Dr. Azam Ahmed, gave him the bad news - a grade 4 glioblastoma.
"It's grown back, and it's big," Matt said last fall when he shared his story with TurfNet.
Although he had played with house money for five years, Matt now faced insurmountable odds.
According to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, glioblastoma is a common and aggressively growing form of brain cancer for which there is no cure. The average length of survival is 15-18 months, and the five-year survival rate is 10 percent.
Those odds did not deter Matt.
"I'm going to beat this," he told TurfNet.
He took his fight public, sharing everything, from breakfast with his son (pictured above), to taking part in an experimental trial at UCLA to leaving the hospital to be home in time for daughter Mara's birthday.
Until the end, Matt was that rock for his family. It is what husbands and fathers are supposed to do. Even in death, his thoughts were for others, not himself. His obituary states: "Cancer taught Matt many lessons about the value of time, and he would much prefer everyone use the hours that would have been spent attending services to make memories with family, volunteer, or engage in a random act of kindness to brighten someone else's day."
That is Matt's legacy, and that is heroic.
