MIDDLETON — Cheryl Lopez was front and center Sunday at her son Kyle’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor at the Danvers Fish & Game Club.
Cheryl Lopez died in March, just as her son was completing his last merit badge to qualify for the honor of being an Eagle Scout. The work he had to do to earn that Personal Management badge became necessary because the paperwork that would have qualified him for it got misplaced, and he had to redo the work.
As all this was going on, his mother was failing and was placed in hospice, where she was able to see her son graduate from St. John’s Prep thanks to the school’s arranging with the Kaplan House to hold a brief ceremony.
“She was so happy,” Lopez said. “It meant a lot to me as well.”
All these elements converged on Lopez at the worst possible time. Yet he persevered.
“My friends, both in school and scouting, and my family,” said Lopez, a member of Troop 34 out of Sacred Heart Church in Lynn. “That is how I got through it.”
To obtain the rank of Eagle Scout, one must manage a project (in Lopez’s case, it was to carve out a hiking path in Lynn Woods and to make signs leading to it). The key word is manage. The scout must plan the project and implement it, delegating work to fellow scouts in his troop and volunteers.
“(Being an Eagle Scout) unlocks a lot of doors,” said Jim Troisi, a former scout leader for Troop 34. “One of the big reasons why Kyle got into Worcester Polytech is because of his project.”
Lopez always wanted to be an Eagle Scout. His troop leader, Rich Bucko, is one, and encouraged Lopez to go for it.
“From hearing about it from Mr. Bucko, and from my family, I wanted it,” he said. “It means a lot, both in terms of scouting and society.”
And it changed him, Troisi said.
“He was always mild-mannered,” Troisi said. “Mature, but reserved. But through the experience, he became his own person. I’m sure being at The Prep helped that along too. But he definitely matured more.”
Bucko said that despite growing up without a father in the house, scouting helped him develop the leadership skills he needed to manage an Eagle Scout project.
“And,” said Bucko, “his mother did everything. She’d drive him down to Kentucky, or Tennessee, for the competitions he was in with the Robotics Club at school. She dedicated her life to him.”
Despite some of his hardships, Lopez was able to go to St. John’s thanks to a scholarship endowed by the family of former Item sports editor Edward H. Cahill. His son, Edward L. Cahill was at the ceremony Sunday. The two became close because recipients are encouraged by the school to communicate, through letters and meetings, with their sponsors.
“We’ve become close,” said Cahill, a member of the Essex Media Group (The Item’s parent company) Board of Directors. “He is very special.”
It was because of all these support systems that Lopez was able to cope when his mother was diagnosed with cancer and her health began to deteriorate.
“The urgency (of becoming an Eagle) increased,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave without some memories, and I wanted her to know that all the things she did for me weren’t in vain. I wanted to be able to show her what I’d become as a man.”
So, it was important to him that he complete his requirements before she died. He did, and his mother was buried with the Eagle Mothers Pin on her.
“Scouting skills also helped me learn how to cook, so I could cook my mother meals when she could no longer do it, and when she could no longer walk by herself, I could help her.”
Sunday, during the ceremony, friends of Cheryl Lopez placed seven red roses on an empty chair next to him in her memory that signified each rank he earned.
Cheryl’s mother (Lopez’s grandmother), Darcy Tetrault, pinned the Eagle Scout medal on him, and his grandfather, John, presented him with the Eagle bolo.
Cheryl Lopez had been an integral part of Troop 34 from her son’s earliest days in scouting.
And the troop made sure her spirit was front and center for the ceremony.