Scott Thomas Lala was born on October 12, 1978 – a beautiful, bald headed, blue-eyed baby boy and the first grandchild on both sides of the family.  He was a shy and loving toddler who would cuddle with you and loved for you to hold him and dance around.  When he could talk, he never left anyone’s house without telling them that he loved them. Although shy, he was very interested in how things worked and would question almost anything.  My favorite question of his was when he was about four years old and asked “Mom,how do ants meet?”
As a toddler, Scott loved to watch wrestling on television. He actually preferred wrestling to cartoons, but thankfully, they came on at different hours of the day.  His father would tease him and tell him the wrestling  wasn’t real, which would make him very angry.  Scott knew the name of every wrestler and rarely missed a wrestling match on TV.  This is about the time Scott noticed Superman, too.  By the time he was three, he was convinced he was Superman and loved to dress in an improvised Superman costume.  This became a big joke in our family and every year at Christmas time, Scott was given some kind of Superman toy or statue from Santa Claus.  Even on his last Christmas, when he was 29 years old, he was given a Superman memento.
His adolescent years were those when “Star Wars” was popular and he had every toy available in the series. Inside, he would play with those toys for hours by himself or with his best friend, Nathan.  Outside, he and his friends would  play all day  - sometimes building forts in the vacant lot next door, riding bikes or just chasing each other around.  Scott loved sports and began playing soccer at the local playground in first grade.  Of course, from there, he got involved in basketball, volleyball and baseball.
His early teenage years were similar to most.  He could be impossible one minute and have you eating out of his hand just with a smile the next.  Then in his later teen years, he became interested in bodybuilding, which later became an obsession with him.  Everyone has their own demons to fight. Scott’s demon was this obsession which led to steroids and everything that comes with them.  There was a time when his father and I didn’t know how to help him and had to face the fact that only he could win that battle.  HE DID!  It took a while, but Scott finally grew up and realized (with the help of others) that he only had to change his dreams some, not give them up. 
Scott beat his first demon, but soon faced an even more difficult one.  He was taking classes to become a physical therapist when he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL).  His diagnosis came one month after the death of his grandfather from a different type of leukemia, and Scott was in disbelief as was our entire family.  ALL is typically a type of leukemia that affects children up to the age of 14.  In someone Scott’s age (27 at the time), it was rare and local doctors immediately referred him to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.  Scott was not feeling sick at the time MD Anderson insisted that he be driven by ambulance to their hospital.  Soon upon arrival, he was rushed to ICU and immediately put on 24 hour dialysis and chemotherapy.  This was very difficult for someone Scott’s age who didn’t feel ill. He made life-style changes to stay healthy, eating only healthy foods and working out almost daily. 
Scott’s initial chemotherapy consisted of daily visits to the hospital, which required him to live in Houston with a week long hospital stay every 21 days.  The doctors and nurses were amazed by his determination to beat this cancer by continuing to work out.  When he was in the hospital, he worked out on a smaller scale in the room while he had up to 12 – 14 bags of medicine including chemotherapy flowing into his body.  The hospital staff would sometimes come in just to watch him and said he was the only patient they knew that actually worked out while in the hospital. 
The doctors decided Scott needed a stem cell transplant the first time he came out of remission.  Fortunately, his youngest sister, Wendy was a match, but, unfortunately, the doctors couldn’t keep him in remission long enough to do the transplant.  Altogether, Scott was in and out of remission four times.  Up until the last time when he also developed pneumonia, Scott continued his health regimen. No matter how he felt, he continued riding his bike (which he truly loved because he could be outside away from the “hospital smell” as he called it) or working out on some basis.
Christmas was Scott’s favorite holiday and he was disappointed that he couldn’t come home for Christmas in 2007.  Instead the family all went to Houston and he had a very happy day.  However, that evening, he told me he thought it was time for him to go back to the hospital and asked me if I thought that was the right thing to do.  The only thing I could tell him was that only he knew the answer to that. No matter what, Scott didn’t complain and I can’t imagine going through the pain and suffering that my son had to endure – especially when he refused pain medication up until the last few days of his life when I insisted that he be given anything needed to reduce his suffering. On December 26, 2007, he was admitted into the hospital where he remained until his death on January 19, 2008.
 After Scott finally accepted his disease, he became close to the hospital Chaplain who knew Scott was in the hospital if he didn’t show up for Mass on Sunday. The Chaplain would sometimes just visit with him in addition to giving him Communion at times. My daily prayer of a “mental” miracle was answered even if the “physical” miracle was not to be. Although he had become his old, sweet self before his diagnosis, the miracle was evident in Scott’s final year and a half of life. He finally became “Superman” and will forever be our hero and will forever be in our hearts.

Scott's Loving Mother, Debbie