Henrik Christensen loved life and loved taking care of the earth. Even during his final illness he enjoyed walking through Wilderness Park, marveling at its beauty and picking up trash left by the thoughtless.
“Despite his illness, he never wavered,” said his younger sister, Greer Christensen Lawson. “He’d go under the brush or over a fence to pick up litter.”
Christensen, 34, died on Aug. 23, 2008. On the day of his funeral, Aug. 38, Lawson, family members and friends went out to Wilderness Park just to walk and pick up any trash they found. That was the first “Hike for Henrik.”
“It was kind of impromptu,” Lawson said.
A second “Hike for Henrik” was held on the Friday after Thanksgiving 2008. The third will be at 10 a.m. this Friday, also at Wilderness Park.
“There will be people doing this from Alaska to Minneapolis, California to Washington, D.C., New York City and Houston,” Lawson said. “Henrik had taught for two years in the Czech Republic, and last year some friends of his there hiked on the Friday after Thanksgiving.”
The children of Lee and Sandra Christensen, Lawson and her brother both grew up in Pittsburg. Their father was Pittsburg State University registrar before his retirement, and their mother was chairman of the curriculum and instruction department.
Henrik went to Brown University and the University of Kansas, then attended a university in Denmark for a year. At the time he was diagnosed with brain cancer, he was working with international students at KU.
“He loved that, and I think that’s what he would have continued doing,” Lawson said.
She attended KU for a year, then returned to PSU. She and her husband, Josh Lawson, reside in Aiken, S.C., with their daughter, Lane, 2.
“I was in nursing school, on the first day of my second semester, when my brother was diagnosed with brain cancer, on Jan. 4, 2006,” Lawson said. “I couldn’t finish at that point. But it seemed like everything I had learned that semester was what I needed to take care of Henrik.”
She was astonished that her brother had developed brain cancer.
“He was the healthiest person I knew,” Lawson said. “Of all the 6 billion people on earth, Henrik was the last person I would have thought would get brain cancer.”
The first symptoms had come, she said, when Henrik began having trouble with words and writing.
“I received a Christmas card from him, and he’d written some words twice,” Lawson said. “He would transpose things, and he was having trouble finding students’ files. It’s ironic he would get something that affected his brain because he was so brilliant.”
Christensen underwent surgery at Mayo Clinic, but the cancer returned. Lawson came home to help care for him.
“My husband was amazing,” she said. “Our daughter was 6 months old then, and Josh said, ‘Go home and do what you have to do,’ so I brought Lane with me and came home to Pittsburg.”
She said another close friend, Wayne Bockelman, helped care for her brother.
“We call Wayne our angel,” Lawson said. “But really, Henrik was taking care of us. He never complained, not once. He never got angry that this had happened to him. I said once, ‘It’s not fair,’ and he just said, ‘What’s fair?’”
Through the Mayo clinic, she became aware of Brains Together for a Cure, an organization that funds brain tumor research. Another good friend, Tom Kreissler, ran the Chicago Marathon to raise money for the organization.
“I wanted to run, but I was too busy taking care of Henrik to train,” Lawson said.
On Oct. 11, though, she completed the Chicago Marathon.
“I told Henrik once that I wanted to run a marathon, and he said, ‘Greer, humans aren’t meant to run that far’,” she said. “The marathon was a euphoric experience for me. I’d do it again in another year.”
She loves running.
“It’s my meditation,” she said. “It’s my time to talk to God and to Henrik.”
Lawson feels that her brother’s spirit may still be around, comforting those who loved him.
“Henrik loved photography as a hobby, and he once took a photo of a redwood stump, after our father had cut down the tree,” she said. “On the stump was a perfect shape of a heart. Shortly after Henrik’s death, our father was walking with Lane, who was 1 year old, and she broke away from him went over, picked up something that perfectly fit her hand, and gave it to her grandfather. It was a rock that almost looked like somebody had carved it into the perfect shape of a heart. At that moment, I knew my brother was OK. I framed that rock and put it in Lane’s room.”
Two months later, Lawson was walking with her family at Myrtle Beach.
“I asked Henrik if he’d let me know he’s all right,” she said. “Lane went over to a crack in the sidewalk and picked up a heart-shaped rock. I framed that one and gave it to my mother. Henrik is OK and we’re OK, but some days are harder than others.”
Lawson said that all interested persons, whether they knew her brother or not, are welcome to show up Friday at Wilderness Park to “Hike for Henrik.”
“Anyone who can’t be with us can go out of their house, walk a block and think of something good,” she said.
PITTSBURG —
