The Missouri River flows by Mandan Union Cemetery, where the leaves blaze yellow and gold now.

Some of them fluttered down last week as you walked across the green grass to a small headstone, not knowing exactly where you were going.

Two years have passed since the marker was dug into the ground, 730 days that, to the little boy's family, sometimes felt like one and sometimes seemed like one million.

You might remember David Sickler, the 6-year-old Mandan boy who died of a brain tumor on Aug. 24, 2004. He fought a pretty public battle with cancer that kept his family completely off balance. The tumor appeared, then vanished unexpectedly. Just as they finished calling it a miracle, the cancer returned, aggressively, reducing the remainder of David's life to a summer.

There was something charismatic about "Brave Dave," as he came to be called, that went beyond his cherubic face and childish exuberance. It transcended the normal sense of pity people feel when a child is struck tragically ill.

When David was alive, he lived - truly lived - something so many adults forget to do. When he died, hundreds of mourners showed up for his funeral, then went home and called grandma or brother or aunt and told them how important they were.

The little boy's death led to an outpouring of love and a renewed sense of what really mattered in life. If that was his role here, he played it well.

But he wasn't quite done.

On the day he died, his mother - Lora Baker - had told him it was all right if he went to the light.

"It's OK to go," she said then. "You're gonna beat me to heaven - just like you beat me down the stairs and down the block - but I'm gonna be right behind you."

She made one more promise to him. She said she would do whatever she could to make sure no more little boys or girls got cancer. He smiled, closed his eyes and left.

Now she's holding up her end of the deal. Two years after her son died, Lora Baker is helping other families cope with grief, anger and worry in a new role with the American Cancer Society. Baker is quality of life adviser for western North Dakota. It's the perfect job for her, she said, the reason she gets up in the morning. Her experience with David prepared her to help hundreds of other people.

"My cancer story doesn't have a happy ending," Baker said. "But I want to help others, give them compassion and support and whatever they need. If that's what I can do in my small time on Earth, then it's worth it."

Dusk to dawn

As you ambled forward in the cemetery last week, footsteps falling silently in the dewy grass, you thought of David Sickler and the day he died. It was still summer then, but autumn had been in the air. It seemed a page was being turned somehow, and you weren't surprised when you got the call. He'd hung on for a long time.

Robert Baker, David's stepfather, visits the boy's grave four or five times a week. He finds peace there, a harbor in the tempest that - after two years - is a storm that will not relent. Baker still had difficulty talking about David, but enjoys talking to David.

In the middle of a field of granite, you saw from afar what had to be the boy's headstone. It was like locating the face of someone you'd never met in a crowd, someone who was looking for you as much as you were looking for them.

David Sickler's grave was decorated with pumpkins and toys. There was a small statue of a little boy fishing. He had been so young. Six.

You remember thinking that David, who came from a Mandan baseball family, would never don the Chiefs uniform on the mound in Memorial Ballpark and baffle a hitter with an 0-2 slider in the dirt. He'd never beat his dad in arm wrestling. He'd never kiss a girl, fall in love or teach his own son to fish.

You said those things then and they seemed important, and maybe they were. Maybe they still are.

But there also was the matter of what one little boy could do. He taught a family how important they were to one another, not to ever take each day or each other for granted. His message reinforced that sentiment in others.

And, as a lasting legacy, David's death led to a new life for his mom, one where she gets a chance to help others deal with the disease that took her son.

Baker tells her story at meetings and rallies across the country. Perhaps her greatest impact is listening to the concerns of cancer patients and their families, letting them know what's on the road ahead and that they aren't alone in their journey.

"She's doing a fabulous job. She's an incredible woman," said Cathy Domres, the American Cancer Society's district director for North Dakota. "You can see her passion in what she does just because of her own personal experience."

From nightmare

to a dream job

The road to recovery from cancer - or recovering from losing a loved one to the disease - is different for everyone.

For some people, it stretches on forever.

"Losing a child is every parent's worst nightmare come true," Lora Baker said. "When you've brought a child into this world, the love is immeasurable. The pain of losing one is also immeasurable. They say the second anniversary (of the death) will be easier than the first, and the third will be easier than the second. For us, that's not true."

The Bakers and their 13-year-old daughter, Taylor, still celebrate David's birthday. They talk about him often and cry. They talk about him often and laugh. He is very much present in their everyday lives. Sometimes they can feel that presence. Sometimes they really suffer the pain.

On Jan. 16, 2005 - exactly a year after doctors told David's family he had cancer - Lora Baker had to be hospitalized.

"I thought I was having a heart attack," she said. "The pain was unbearable. An ambulance came and they took me out on a stretcher and took me to the hospital."

It wasn't a heart attack. Not literally. But it was an attack on the heart.

Baker suffered "broken heart" syndrome, a legitimate condition caused by severe emotional stress. The symptoms mimic that of heart failure, but are reversible.

The illness served as a wake-up call. Baker knew then that she had to find another way to deal with David's loss. She made the difficult decision to quit her job with Pride Inc. - she'd worked for 18 years in the human-services field - and took the newly created position with the Bismarck-Mandan chapter of the ACS.

It was the best choice she could have made.

Robert Baker said his wife is incredibly excited to go to work every morning.

"She loves her job," Baker said. "She has a unique perspective because of what happened with David, and can share that with people."

In addition to talking and listening about cancer, Lora Baker helps patients learn more about what the ACS can do for them. She works with the Bismarck Cancer Center's "Look Good, Feel Good" program, which provides makeup and skin-care kits for women undergoing cancer treatment and also serves as a support group.

Baker also works with Reach to Recovery, where survivors of breast cancer meet with recently diagnosed patients to help answer their questions.

The American Cancer Society also gives patients rides to treatment sessions, lobbies for funding for cancer research and sponsors the popular Relay for Life event, which raises money for cancer awareness and prevention programs.

"I'm so blessed and so honored to be able to do what I do every day,"Baker said. "This is something I would be doing anyway, so it's a dream job. God has a plan for each of us. He gave David everything he needed in six years to do his job here on Earth. Don't think every day Idon't question it and wonder why things happened how they did. But this is a great honor and a huge responsibility."

At the cemetery in Mandan, the falling leaves and the flowing river are reminders that what is here now will be gone tomorrow, down the road and out of sight.

The goal is to not forget what you had and cherish what you have. Remember the past, live for the now and plan for the future.

That was David's lesson. That is his mother's job.

(Reach reporter Tony Spilde at 250-8260 or tony.spilde@;bismarcktribune.com.)