Facing cancer, Philipsburg man decorates his home into the ‘tackiest’ in Centre County
Fran Gray’s medical history is as lengthy as it is complicated, one that could leave even the most seasoned cardiologist scratching their head.
The 52-year-old Army veteran has survived two heart attacks and a stroke, had five cardiac catheterization procedures completed and underwent a quintuple bypass surgery. He also has diabetes.
A sledding injury when he was 10 years old left him with 164 stitches in his head, two broken eye sockets, a broken nose, a broken jaw and a monthlong stay in the hospital.
None of those experiences, Gray said, scared him. It never occurred to him that death was an option.
His most recent diagnosis — colorectal cancer — has challenged him more than any other and spurred an unusual effort to make this Christmas his biggest and brightest.
“The cancer scared me way more than the heart attacks, partially because I’ve had family members and I’ve seen how cancer ends. I’m just not interested in that at all. The end stages of cancer are undignifying,” Gray said. “I could get eaten by a great white; that would be cool. I just don’t want to go out as a footnote. I want to go out with a bang when I go.”
A two-hour conversation with Gray painted him as a Ford-loving outdoorsman who leads a practical life. He riffed, for example, about the concept of days versus business days; a day is a day, he expressed.
That’s part of the reason why — even as a family that loves Christmas — their Rush Township home was never decorated in an ornate fashion. Why put up all of those lights only to have to take them down weeks later, Gray wondered aloud.
Running lights down a banister and through some bushes on either side of their porch was usually the extent of their decorating. It was enough to draw a passing mention as people drove by; it wasn’t a showstopper.
Gray’s diagnosis changed that. He, his wife and their three children have spent the better part of the past month turning their home into the “tackiest” in Centre County.
He asked people through Facebook to send him any old lights or decorations they had little use for; he didn’t ask anyone to buy new decorations, though some did. Dozens from across central Pennsylvania and as far away as Pittsburgh pitched in.
One of the first decorations he received was an inflatable flamingo wearing a Santa hat while riding an ornament. Another was a bear standing in a flamingo inner tube.
The response, Gray said, has been “overwhelming.”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect to get some things, but I did not expect to get near what I got,” Gray said. “... My brother-in-law is an engineer and he ... checked all the electrical breakers and boxes to make sure that it would withstand what we were about to do to it. It has, but we’re just about out of outlets.”
Gray is a native of Renovo, a tiny blue-collar borough in Clinton County where high school sports, hunting and fishing are a way of life. It doesn’t take long for news to get from one person to another.
“You got more respect for shooting a bear than you did getting an A in chemistry,” Gray said.
His wife, Jennifer, was his high school sweetheart. They’re set to celebrate their 30th anniversary Monday. They chose to get married the day after Christmas, in part, because some friends and family made the pilgrimage there for the holiday and wouldn’t have to make another trip.
They lived in Happy Valley for a time, but found it wasn’t for them and their hunting dogs. The Philipsburg area was the nearest small town that didn’t make for an onerous drive for his wife, who works at Penn State.
On the other side of Christmas and their anniversary waits a series of medical appointments with “the best doctors on the east coast,” Gray said. Treatment, including chemotherapy and radiation, is scheduled to begin in early January.
The trips to New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland aren’t the ones he had in mind to celebrate three decades of marriage but if they give him an opportunity to plan even more, Gray said, it will be “well worth it.”
“I’ve been dodging bullets forever. I just don’t think it’s my time, but if it is, I’ll go unafraid,” Gray said. “Everybody wants more time.”
This story was originally published December 24, 2022 at 7:00 AM.