Ben (L) and Tom Gray 

By Ben Gray

When my younger brother passed away from brain cancer in July 2016 it came as a big shock. Tom was only eight years old. He gave me most of the enjoyment I had in my life. He was only 17 months younger than me. He was my best mate. We did most things together, we shared a bedroom and used to stay up late talking most nights. It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me and the cruellest thing that could ever happen to Tom. I miss him so much.

After Tom passed away, me and my family decided that we wanted to do something to raise money to make sure that other people didn’t have to go through what we have been through. Tom would have wanted us to walk so that others wouldn’t have the same thing happen to them. He cared a lot about other people, and he hated people suffering in any way at all.

Captain Tom on holiday in 2015 

I wanted to raise money for brain cancer so a cure can be found and people don’t have to suffer the feelings of sadness and helplessness like I did when I couldn’t help a loved one. So I decided that I would try to raise as much money as I could for Walk4BrainCancer Melbourne in November 2017.  

We have some amazing friends and family in Melbourne who joined Team Tom that my family set up. They donated money to our team, and so did many people who had never met myself or Tom but just wanted to help. All of those people are amazing, and I am so grateful to them for everything they have done to help fight this horrific cancer.

My good friends hosted a fundraiser at their house and dropped letters in our neighbour’s letterboxes to ask people if they would donate. 

By the time the walk came around on 19 November, I had raised over $26,000! I can’t believe how generous people have been, it’s really amazing and I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated to my page or shared my story!

Losing Tom was such a horrible situation, but I am really happy that we have been able to raise this huge amount of money in his memory. I will keep telling my story because it’s important that people know about this horrible disease that is brain cancer, and keep donating to fund research that will hopefully find a cure. I don’t want any other families to go through anything like what ours has, and hopefully a cure is not far away. 

A HUGE thank you,

Ben