UTEP football team members visit Bobby (center) to give him a signed football while in the hospital. (Courtesy of Bobby Garcia)

A family comes together to battle against leukemia

EL PASO – I will never forget the Thursday morning I heard my weeping mother say the four scariest words I had ever heard, “Your brother has leukemia.”

As those words left her mouth, an indescribably sickening feeling shook my body and a million thoughts rushed through my mind. Thoughts of anger and fear consumed my very being at that moment, but as I looked up at my brother I remember seeing his face. He was unremarkably calm. I expected to see him crying or worried. Those were feelings I know I would be expressing if I had received that terrible diagnosis.