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ASHEBORO - Michael Weese will leave today for N.C. State.

He'll take his laptop, his Emergency Medical Services flag, even his foot-tall doll of Superman. Then he'll begin his long-awaited quest, something he's thought about since he fished with a Mickey Mouse pole.

He wants to become a pediatric oncologist, a doctor who treats kids broadsided by cancer. He has a special motivation: his parents.

They both died of cancer. And Michael, who is 17, thinks about that every day.

Several times a week, he visits his parents' grave. It's an above-ground crypt, made of concrete, brick and imitation marble, that sits underneath the sprawling limbs of an old oak.

It's atop a slight hill on private property across the road from where Michael lives - beside Camp Woodfield, a Boy Scout camp near Asheboro, where his family once raised Arabians and Egyptian Arabians below Mary's Mountain.

When Michael visits, he often carries out a simple ritual. He kisses the fingers of his left hand, touches their tomb and says, sometimes out loud: "I'm going to do something great with my life. Your deaths won't be in vain."

"That's how I feel," Michael said this week. "They made the ultimate sacrifice, so I need to do something with my life. I can't lie down and let the world beat me because I have to think this happened for a reason.

"God wouldn't make me live through this hell for nothing. This is the opening. This is when I start my life."

Michael was the youngest of five, a spindly blonde-haired boy when his world fell apart.

Breast cancer attacked Michael's mom, Amanda. He watched her grimace when she put on a seat belt and heard her say in the hospital, "Michael, I'm sick. I'm not going to make it. I'll try to make it to Christmas."

She didn't. She died Oct. 7, 1999 . She was 46; Michael was 9.

Colon cancer attacked Michael's dad, Danny. He watched his dad deteriorate and saw fear for the first time in this "strong, humongous man" who taught him how to grip a knuckleball, throw a football and survive in the woods.

His dad died Oct. 28, 2001 . He was 50; Michael was 11.

There was a time when Michael would stand in his backyard, in front of his basketball goal, and practice free throws for hours.

Each time, he'd say to himself, "God, if I hit this shot, you won't take my parents away from me."

There also was a time when he was depressed, withdrawn and angry at God.

Not anymore.

His family church, First Baptist Church of Asheboro, helped. The parishioners gave his family a car to travel back and forth to the hospital and raised $150,000 in a few weeks to cover his mom's cancer treatment.

Michael still remembers walking into the church and seeing a fishbowl full of money.

His sister, Danielle, helped, too. She's 10 years older than Michael. She's the sibling closest in age and closest in geography. She's now 27 , living in Boone, and talks several times a week with Michael.

But his parents' neighbors, Alfred and Shirley Giles, anchored it all. They adopted Michael - or, as Shirley likes to say, "inherited" - when they were in their 50s and finished raising four children of their own.

At first, Alfred was apprehensive. He even joked with Michael's dad, "Danny, I think I'm through with raising young 'uns. I'm ready to kick up my feet."

But after the death of Michael's dad, Alfred and Shirley didn't think twice.

Ask him about it after an afternoon of repairing rails at Camp Woodfield, and Alfred mentions one thing between sips of his Mountain Dew.

Country music.

"You ever listen to George Jones and one of his better songs, 'Choices'?" asked Alfred, 63, the ranger at Camp Woodfield.

"That song has so much meaning. He's talking about your conscience, the voices you hear in your mind.

"Well, the voices I heard were, 'Michael needs to be taken care of,' and I've never regretted it. I honestly feel I was supposed to do that."

Michael is now 6-foot-2, 190 pounds, built like his father, a barrel-chested man who always told his youngest son, "You can do anything as long as you keep your head straight."

And Michael has tried.

He's kept his grades up and graduated with honors from Southwestern Randolph High. He's ridden with paramedics, job-shadowed an oncologist and become a certified nurse's assistant.

But at Camp Woodfield, he's known as Ready Man.

This summer, he worked as the camp's health and safety instructor. He taught first aid to hundreds of Scouts from North Carolina and Virginia. And each time he did, he shared his story.

"I want to become a pediatric oncologist because I love you guys," he told Scouts taking his class. "You see, I lost my mom and dad to cancer, and I would like nothing better than to find a cure."

Afterward, the questions from Scouts always came.

"What was life like for you?"

"It was pretty tough," Michael responded, "but I made it through."

Because of heredity, Michael knows cancer could attack him just like it did his mom and dad. So he watches what he eats, talks to his doctor and exercises every day.

Meanwhile, he keeps one of his family's horses in a barn nearby. He calls him Falcon, a 10-year-old horse that was the foal of his mother's favorite Arabian, The Golden Minstrel, better known as The Boy.

He's ridden Falcon only once. But he keeps him for the memories.

Then there are his walks through Camp Woodfield. He passes the lakes where he once fished, and he remembers the acronym his mother once told him from her hospital bed.

PUSH. As in, Pray Until Something Happens .

Michael does . Especially now, as he leaves for N.C. State to learn that occupation he first heard from Danielle when he was no more than 8 , a spindly kid with a Mickey Mouse fishing pole.

Today, for the Ready Man of Camp Woodfield, his quest begins.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com