Times Sports Correspondent
AUBURN-A few hours after Auburn’s annual A-Day spring scrimmage Saturday, the Auburn football coaches teamed up with 400 Auburn fans to help raise more than $100,000 for the Sydney Gran Foundation, created to help families with children battling serious neurological problems.
The foundation was established last year at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, Ala., by Auburn running backs coach Eddie Gran and his wife, Rosemary, in memory of their daughter, Sydney, who died in May 2005. It is designed to provide financial help for children being treated for seizures in the neurological clinic at Children’s.
The Sydney Gran Foundation's Inaugural Gala was held at the Marriott Hotel at the Robert Trent Jones Grand National Golf Course in Opelika. Tickets to the sold-out event cost $100, and both silent and live auctions were held throughout the night to raise thousands more.
Former Auburn stars Carnell Williams, Ronnie Brown, Jason Campbell, Carlos Rogers and Ole Miss stand-out Deuce McAllister were among the celebrities who attended.
Money was also raised by the sell of Sydney Gran Foundation T-shirts, which were sold by a local store.
“Through this foundation, Sydney is going to be alive through her parents, her family and this community,” Eddie Gran said. “This is a way that, through her, we can help Children's Hospital."
Rosemary was two months pregnant in November of 1999 when Eddie left Ole Miss with then-Rebels head coach Tommy Tuberville to coach at Auburn.
The Grans already had two daughters, Hannah and Dillan, and were joyfully looking forward to the arrival of their third child, another little girl.
The family of four had already moved to Auburn and were adjusting to the new town and settling into their new home when Sydney was born in June of 2000. In the delivery room, doctors told Rosemary and Eddie that Sydney was a special little girl.
They had no idea then just how special she would be - to them and to the thousands who would be impacted by her short but precious life.
Rosemary and Eddie learned a few days after her birth that Sydney had been born with a rare disease known as holoprosencephaly (HPE), which caused her brain to stop developing during the first three months in the womb.
The news was earth shattering to the young Grans.
“We went into Children's thinking it was something that could be ‘fixed.’ We were in shock when the neurosurgeon told us she may live only a few weeks,” Rosemary said. “HPE children usually don't survive delivery. We just asked God to help us take it one day at a time. We were thankful for everyday. We tried not to worry about next month or next year.”
Rosemary and Eddie clung to each other and to their faith in God to help them survive the next few horrifying days. The more they learned about Sydney’s disease, the more terrified they became. Their little girl would never talk, never walk, never sing or dance or play. She would never say the word, “Mommy.” She would never sit up on her own or eat solid food by herself. She would never kiss her Daddy or run after her big sisters.
But as the Grans would soon see, Sydney was spunky. Though she often vomited continually, she still gurgled and smiled the best she could. Though she coughed and gagged and choked on her own mucus until Rosemary cried out to God in agony as she watched her child suffer, Sydney battled on. Though Rosemary fed her through tubes and sucked out her child’s lungs with tears streaming down her face, still, little Sydney kept going. She learned to make sweet little gurgling sounds in response to her family and friends and would light up when someone, whose voice she recognized, walked into the room. She loved sipping chocolate milkshakes through straws and would beam when someone gave her a McDonald’s French fry to lick. The Grans spoiled her rotten. Hannah and Dillan loved on her constantly, rubbing her cheeks with their little hands, gently kissing her face and putting ribbons in her hair. Rosemary and Eddie doted on her, took her everywhere they went, sang her little songs and prayed over her daily.
They called her their little Angel, convinced she was sent to them straight from heaven.
There were days when Rosemary, her face white with lack of sleep and the pain of watching her child suffer, wondered how much more she could take. She never got a full night’s sleep the six years Sydney was alive.
“We slept in a chair holding Sydney in an upright position for several weeks,” Rosemary remembers. “She could not breathe very well, and when we laid her on her back she would turn blue. She had her first surgery at two months to help open up her nasal passages. It was a very rare surgery, pretty new technology. For many years, we would get about three to five hours of sleep a night. Eddie and I would change off sleeping beside Sydney so one of us could get a little bit extra. She had her bed right beside ours.”
Sydney slept in a little bed hooked up to machines that rattled and hummed all night. After she died, their bedroom was silent. Rosemary and Eddie listened to the silence and wept.
“Sydney showed us what is really important in life – God,” Rosemary said. “Without Him and His Grace, your life would be nothing. I could not have made it through the very tough times without knowing that He was there with us.”
It was their faith in God that helped them through the long days and even longer nights of watching their child suffer. Sydney often had seizures and at times struggled to breathe and keep her food down. Rosemary and Eddie turned to the Lord to help them. Team chaplain and FCA campus director Chette Williams and his wife, Lakeba, became close friends with the Grans and often prayed with them and for them – and for little Sydney. Williams helped point the Grans toward Christ and tried to help them deal with what seemed like such unjust pain. Over the years, Eddie has been a strong supporter of Auburn’s FCA, serving as a speaker for the campus huddle and taking his family to FCA Camp at Black Mountain each summer. The Grans always took Sydney to camp and shared their testimony about her a few summers ago.
Both Eddie and Rosemary are quick to admit that Sydney changed their lives and helped them know Jesus in a way they never had before. Coping with her constant suffering forced them to seek the Lord and depend on Him in ways they never would have dreamed possible. But Sydney’s impact was felt far beyond the Gran residence. The Auburn community fell in love with her, and Auburn fans all over the nation prayed for her daily. Sydney was known and loved by thousands for her sweet spirit and courageous fight to survive.
Her short six years brought great joy mingled with intense pain for Eddie and Rosemary. One night, when Sydney had been unusually sick, Rosemary had just about had enough. Just when she thought God must surely have forgotten her, He reminded her that He never had – and never would.
“Sydney was very sick and I had been pushed to my limits, and I prayed to God that He would show me why Sydney had to suffer so much,” Rosemary said. “I told Him that I didn't understand and wanted Him to help me understand. That night I had a dream and there is no doubt in my mind that it was a gift from God. I was entering heaven with the light that we all hear about, and I saw several shadows standing there waiting for me to get closer. As I approached one of the shadows, a small one, came running toward me. It was Sydney in her little white dress with her arms outstretched yelling for me, her Mommy. She ran to me and gave me a big hug. Then my dream ended, and I woke up. To me, this dream was an answer to my prayer. God was showing me what His Word says - that in heaven Sydney's earthly body will be no more. She was well and walking and talking like we had hoped for.”
When Sydney was born, she wasn’t expected to live more than two months. Instead, she lived almost six years, dying May 31, 2005 - not long before her sixth birthday.
About a month before Sydney’s death, the Grans started the foundation that bears her name. Drake Nunn, a fundraiser for Children’s Hospital, where Sydney spent so much time, thought of the idea. The Grans eagerly embraced it.
Rosemary and Eddie had both noticed over the years that although anyone is treated at Children’s, whether the family can pay for it or not, many families of special needs children could not afford the wheelchairs, medicines, machines, and other things they needed to help them. Rosemary says while research is important, she and Eddie wanted this foundation to put money straight into the hands of the families that desperately need it.
Dr. Lane Rutledge, Sydney’s neurosurgeon at Children’s, said about 60 percent of Alabama’s children are on Medicaid. Though Children’s can treat them in the hospital, they still don’t receive the support, equipment and other things they need when they go home. Through Sydney’s foundation, some of them will.
“Our goal is to make a difference for children in this state the same way Sydney made a difference to us,” Eddie said.