Seventy-six year-old Vietnam veteran Albert Septien was recently diagnosed with terminal stage 4 melanoma and told that Christmas 2019 would be his last.
His cousin, Joe Maestre, asked him what his Christmas wish was. “And he says, ‘I want to make a snow angel.’ Maestre told Fox affiliate WTVT. ‘Well, you got it, you got it,’ Maestre said. “And he laughed! He said to me, ‘In Tampa? You’re crazy.’”
The terminally ill Florida resident missed the snow he remembers from growing up in Connecticut.
Determined to create enough snow for his beloved cousin to make a snow angel, Maestre hired a crew to turn eight tons of ice into snow in his cousin’s yard.
Septien believes he contracted cancer during his exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, and says the cancer treatments cause burning sensations throughout his body, like living with a “built-in furnace.” He loved the cold snow. “To feel the coldness, all of that, it was really good,” Septien said. “I was soaked, even to my underwear, but it was great.”
“I don’t think there’s words to explain it,” Maestre said. “The look on his face, the feeling in his heart. The tears that he had. This has been the most wonderful day in the last year.”
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