More than a diagnosis.
Dominic was the kind of person who walked into a room and made it bigger. He chose veterinary medicine because he loved animals — but really, he loved every living thing that needed someone in its corner. Caring for others wasn't something he did. It was who he was.
There's a story his father — my uncle — has shared more than once. Near the end, when Dominic was at his sickest, his dad was at his bedside trying to comfort him. And somehow, in that moment, Dominic flipped it. He wasn't worried about himself. He was worried about his dad. He looked at him and said,
That was Dominic. A father trying to hold up his son, and the son was the one holding up his father. It's a microcosm of who he was his whole life — always more concerned with the people around him than with himself. Always trying to make sure everyone else was okay first.
He had a saying that captured how he moved through the world:
Live extra. Show up bigger. Love harder. Care more than the moment requires. That's what he did, and that's what he asked of the people around him — without ever asking.
In 2021, at just 28 years old, Ewing sarcoma took him from us. But what it could not take is the love he poured into the world, the lives he touched, and the determination of those he left behind — his mom and dad, his brother and sister, and the family who refuses to let his story end here.
This is our promise to him — and our invitation to you.
