This is Wyatt. Cancer sucks.
Why would I caption this with words? The picture speaks for itself. Hope this inspires you to get the family sized Doritos, enjoy the beer, and roll the dice.
Scroll down for pictures and to learn more about Wyatt.
Wyatt with our mom, Nancy, the night he was the guest speaker at the Hope Ball in Albany, GA
Wyatt and his wife, Abby
On a mission trip in Mozambique while in remission
One of his many costumes, on one of the many nights he made people laugh while being a leader in Young Life
This is his dog, Pudge, wearing the iconic crawdad costume my mom made for Wyatt
Wyatt and his dog, Buddy
On another mission trip
Wy-Wy and Ti-Ti
The night of the Hope Ball
I love this picture, taken on another mission trip. Some of his mission trips were to: Peru, Belize, Dominican Republic, Mozambique
Wyatt and Abby the night of their rehearsal dinner
Wyatt's Young Life roommates coming down from UGA to support him at the Hope Ball.
Brooks and Wyatt, aka Butch and Dwayne, aka Pete and Re-Pete
I think this picture was from YL camp at Frontier Ranch
My first visit from Wyatt during college. Also my first facebook picture.
Buck (the horse) making us look good.
Wyatt and Frosty
Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on September 22, 1985, 8 pounds and 3 ounces of Gregory Wyatt Mitchell were delivered butt first. (Ask Julia for the details of that delivery.)
His entrance into the world is, fittingly, part of his legacy. His butt set the gold standard for fart jokes and twerk attacks. Are they still considered fart jokes if he's the only one laughing? He could fumigate a room as quickly as he could pin you against a wall in a twerk ambush. As his sibling, these are some of the things I remember him for.
His teachers would remember his good grades and his charm. His coaches would remember a well-rounded athlete who was part of state championship teams and set track records in the hurdles. His friends, teammates, Young Life kids, family, and probably everyone who knew him, would each have their own version.
It's hard to speak for everybody.
What I can say is that Wyatt rarely complained and always had a laugh. He was a mentor, an example, a leader, a friend, and a follower of Christ. He had a remarkable ability to find the fun in whatever circumstances he was handed.
Wyatt was diagnosed with synovial cell sarcoma in 2005, after our freshman year of college. Aggressive surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation delayed school for a year, but he still graduated from UGA in 2009. Immediately after graduation, he married Abby, and they moved to MD Anderson for more surgeries and treatment. They eventually settled in Thomasville, Georgia, where they spent their marriage together until Wyatt's battle with cancer ended in 2010.
His legacy lives on through the people who knew him, the stories we still tell about him, and the way he taught us to find something worth laughing about even when life isn't particularly funny. And here we are at a fundraising event where his legacy lives on through a cat, a half ‘stache, a yard full of people, and a few of tortoises racing the wrong way.