The Prince of Brave

Brandon Reed was fourteen years old when he was diagnosed with stage four alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma. He fought it for thirteen months — alongside his mother, Devin, and his sister and best friend, Ella — with a steadiness that astonished the doctors treating him, the friends who never left his side, and the family who watched him face every new piece of bad news with the same quiet line: Okay. Let's do this.

The day he passed, Ella looked up the meaning of his name. Brandon — Prince of Brave. The name stuck, because it was true.

A boy from Vero Beach

Brandon grew up on the Treasure Coast — fishing before he could really fish, skating before he could really skate, and getting good at both faster than seemed reasonable. By the time he was a teenager, he was traveling Florida for skate competitions and placing first in nearly every one he entered. In 2022 alone, out of sixteen competitions, he placed first in every single one. That same year he was invited onto the Jarritos team, an exclusive group he was proud to skate with. Devin built an indoor skate facility on their Vero Beach property so Brandon and Ella could train year-round. The space turned into something more than a ramp and a street course — it became the place his friends gathered.

That was Brandon's life before cancer: ordinary in the best way. Long sunburned days, packed cars, skate bags by the door, dance parties in the kitchen, Ella his constant companion, the ocean always within reach.

The lump

It started with something small in his arm. A lump that didn't hurt. The walk-in clinic called it a hematoma — wrap it, ice it, give it time. The lump kept growing. By the time Devin scheduled an appointment with a pediatric radiologist, it was the size of a baseball.

The radiologist's call came the day after Thanksgiving. It's not good.

Within days, Brandon was sitting with the head of pediatric sarcoma oncology at Nicklaus Children's Hospital, hearing the words stage four and twenty-six weeks of chemotherapy. He stepped away for a moment when Devin told him. Then he came back.

All right. Let's go. Let's do this.

The fight

He absorbed treatment the way he had absorbed everything else — quietly, with discipline, with a kind of stubborn grace that didn't ask for sympathy. He asked questions. He followed instructions. He didn't dramatize the bad days.

When his hair started coming out on his pillow after two weeks, he didn't cry. He turned to Ella and asked her to shave his head. She did, no ceremony. He looked in the mirror, nodded once, and moved on. That was Brandon's pattern: cancer would try to take something from him slowly, and Brandon would take it back fast and on his own terms.

When the Make-A-Wish Foundation came to him, Brandon politely declined. He asked if they could give the wish to a child who needed it more. When they returned later, he accepted — and asked only for a day centered on fishing.

After the first twenty-six weeks of chemotherapy, the cancer mutated. The treatment that had carried him stopped working. Doctors told him he'd need to start over: another twenty-six weeks from week one. For the first time, Brandon was tired in a way that scared Devin. He told her quietly that he wasn't sure he wanted to keep going. After a long conversation with a close friend that afternoon, he came back into the room and said, Okay. I'm ready. I'll do it — for my friends, my family, and myself.

He picked up his rod again. With skating off the table, fishing became his therapy — boats, open water, the quiet that hospital rooms could never hold. One day out on the water, after five hours of chasing a tarpon, Brandon and a friend finally landed it. Brandon told Devin afterward that during the fight he believed God had spoken to him. The tarpon was the cancer. Exhausting, elusive, but beatable. It would take time. Family. Friends. Endurance.

He believed his miracle was coming.

The village

The Reed house was almost never empty. At any given time during Brandon's treatment, seventeen kids rotated through — sleeping over, showing up after school, staying late. They didn't treat Brandon like a patient. They treated him like Brandon. They fished with him. They laughed with him. They sat beside him when there was nothing left to say.

Around them, life kept happening. Ella was bitten by a shark that summer and was on the international news within weeks; she was back in the water in ten days. Devin's work team gave her flexibility she didn't have to ask for. Friends Devin had known her whole life showed up daily and stayed.

None of them could fight Brandon's cancer for him. All of them made sure he didn't fight it alone.

The last miracle

When the second round of chemotherapy ended, scans showed a small spot on Brandon's lung. The cancer had spread. Doctors switched him to an oral chemotherapy regimen and for a stretch he felt good — a million bucks good. His hair grew back. He had his braces removed. He skated again.

Then the scans came back worse. The cancer had moved aggressively through his lungs. There were no standard options left.

Brandon's oncologist found a colleague at MD Anderson in Houston running an experimental trial. Brandon would be the first human in the world to receive it. Okay, he said. Let's do it. Maybe this is my miracle.

Between rounds of preparation, the Reeds took what would be their last family trip together — Breckenridge, Colorado. Brandon snowboarded eight hours a day. The Houston doctors later said that should have been impossible given what was already happening inside him.

When the family flew back to Houston for the trial, Brandon was on oxygen. The doctors completed the scans and pulled Devin aside. The cancer was everywhere — head to toes, bones, organs, lungs filling. They could not proceed with the trial. They told the family to take Brandon home.

A family friend with a private plane said yes without hesitation when Devin asked. Brandon flew home on a Tuesday. Hospice was waiting that evening.

Home

For the next week his friends came in shifts and rarely left. Sometimes they watched movies. Sometimes they slept next to him. Sometimes nobody said anything at all. Two days before he passed, Brandon told Devin his miracle was going to look different than they had hoped. He was okay with that.

On January 16, 2024, in the early hours of the morning, Brandon opened his eyes and told Devin he loved her. Those were his last words. That afternoon his family played Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. At 6:09 p.m., Brandon took his last breath.

The foundation

The Brandon Reed Foundation was born in the quiet weeks after he was gone.

During Brandon's treatment, Devin watched families arrive at the hospital wholly unprepared for what was about to happen to them — parents sleeping in chairs, skipping meals, trying to be strong while quietly coming apart. She also watched Brandon. Every time someone gave him a gift or a comfort, his first instinct was to give it to a child who needed it more. That instinct didn't come from cancer. It was who he was before any of it began.

The foundation exists to do for other families what Brandon would have done if he could.

We provide care backpacks delivered to pediatric cancer patients and their families the moment they're admitted to the hospital — filled with the things our family wished we'd had on day one. Cozy blankets. Headphones. Journals and devotionals. Meal gift cards. Comfort items that feel small but make the difference between a bad day and an unbearable one.

Fishing — Brandon's greatest joy — remains part of how we honor him. Through partnerships with the local fishing community, including an annual King Mackerel Tournament whose organizers folded the foundation into the heart of the event, we extend Brandon's reach to families we'll never meet.

We are a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization, EIN 33-4405272. 100% of every donation goes directly to families.

Read Devin's full account

Devin Reed wrote about Brandon's life, his fight, and the faith that carried their family in her memoir Grit, Grind, and God's Grace. It is the fullest record of his story.

Buy Now on Amazon →

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