Estimated read time: 10-11 minutes
REXBURG, Idaho — "Eddie Grampp is trying to reach you. He's on hospice and wants to see you before he dies."
That was the message relayed to me from one of my colleagues last week, and I wasn't sure how to respond. I'd never been asked to visit a dying person and wasn't sure what Eddie wanted.
We had only met once in December 2023 when I was asked to deliver an SUV from a Secret Santa to his family in Rexburg. We texted back and forth for a bit afterward – him thanking me for bringing the vehicle, me wishing him well.
But now he wanted to see me, and it was urgent.
The diagnosis
Eddie is 41 and madly in love with his wife, Mary, who he says has only gotten more beautiful and younger since they tied the knot in 2005 after meeting at BYU-Idaho.
"I went on a mission to Puerto Rico, and when I came back, I had plans to return and find a Puerto Rican girl to marry," Eddie recalls. "But along the way, I got conquered by a beautiful Viking."
The young couple had big dreams and Eddie took a job as an animator at Disney in Los Angeles. He then worked with Nickelodeon on "Penguins of Madagascar," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and multiple other projects.
It wasn't too long before Eddie and Mary welcomed "Little Eddie" into their family — a baby boy, born in 2008. He was followed by another son, Jacob, two years later and in 2012, Mary gave birth to McKaylee — their first daughter.
Four months after McKaylee was born, Eddie had a headache that wouldn't go away. He developed cold, tingly sensations on the left side of his body and consulted with several doctors. A scan revealed glioblastoma, a highly aggressive, malignant tumor in Eddie's brain. The average life expectancy for someone with glioblastoma is 12 to 18 months, according to the Glioblastoma Research Organization.
He immediately began radiation and chemotherapy at UCLA. Mary and McKaylee often spent time with Eddie during treatments, and their little girl was a bright light during a very dark time.
"One day at one of my brain tumor appointments, McKaylee was kind of fussing, and Mary took her out into the hall. Johnny Depp just happened to walk past her. He stopped, looked at McKaylee and said, 'That is the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen,'" Eddie says with a smile. "He just happened to be in the hospital. Maybe he was trying to flirt with my wife and that's OK because if Johnny Depp was trying to flirt with my wife, that's a cool thing to me as well."
Eddie continued treatments, with McKaylee bringing smiles every step of the way, and the tumor remained relatively stable. He was able to continue working and soon, Mary became pregnant with their fourth child. Everything seemed to be going well for the Grampps.
The accident
On Aug. 12, 2015, Eddie returned home from work and pulled into the underground parking garage of their townhouse complex. He didn't see McKaylee, who had run out to greet him with a hug and a kiss, and hit his 3-year-old daughter. She was rushed to the hospital, where she passed away.
The day before she died, Eddie told the Deseret News that his daughter offered to make him pretend breakfast with a plastic egg in her kitchen play set.
"That was our last personal daddy-daughter interaction. I am going to keep that little gift, the plastic egg, with me to always remember that little moment of love. It means the world to me," Eddie said at the time.
Mary was "very pregnant" with their daughter Molly and feeling overwhelmed. A few days after McKaylee's funeral, Mary's mom told her and Eddie to get out of the house for a change of scenery.
"We went to the store and when we got out of the car, I remember looking at everyone around me. People were laughing and just going on with their life. I remember thinking that they had no idea we had just lost our beautiful daughter in a horrible accident, and how could they be laughing?" Mary says. "But as soon as I had that thought, I was completely overcome by another feeling and I think it was McKaylee. The feeling was that I didn't know what all those other people were going through. Maybe they were going through something even more horrible, and that has stuck with me ever since. We don't know what other people are going through."
The Golden project
Molly was born three months after McKaylee died, and Eddie continued treatment for his brain tumor. He went in for regular scans and remained on medication.
"One day, Mary and I were driving to some appointments, and we were talking about animated movies that hadn't been made by Disney yet," Eddie recalls. "We brought up Rumpelstiltskin and I said, 'Yeah, it's because it's kind of a terrible story when you think about it.'"
But Eddie started to wonder how he could possibly change the story, which is about a mysterious gnomelike man who boasts to a king that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king locks the girl in a tower filled with straw and a spinning wheel and demands she spin the straw into gold by morning or he will have her killed.
"I thought about how I could fix it. Then, after McKaylee passed, I decided I wanted to do the animated fairy tale version of Rumpelstiltskin in her honor," Eddie says.
He went to work drafting the story, meeting with other animators, pitching the idea around Hollywood and trying to get the project off the ground.
Meanwhile, Eddie decided to go on disability because of his health. He and Mary needed a slower pace of a life in a community that was more affordable than California, so they made the decision to move to Rexburg in 2018.
The Secret Santa surprise
Eddie continued taking animation jobs on the side and never stopped working on his project for McKaylee. He called it "Golden: A Rumpelstiltskin Tale" and launched a blog explaining his idea.
Mary enrolled in an online interior design school and began substitute teaching in Rexburg.
Eddie worked with doctors at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, and a scan in 2022 showed his brain tumor had doubled in size. His doctors recommended he undergo radiation again, despite serious risks.
The following winter, in 2023, a Secret Santa heard the Grampps were still driving the van involved in the accident that resulted in the death of their daughter. He asked the EastIdahoNews.com team to surprise the family with an SUV.
"I was driving the van around, and it was hard because I had PTSD getting behind that wheel and remembering what happened," Eddie says. "I was trying to get some sort of part-time job so that I could afford another car payment, but nobody wanted to hire me because of the brain tumor. It was a really hard time, and then Secret Santa blessed me with a car."
The Grampps gave their old van to another family, and over the past year, Eddie says the SUV has brought many unexpected blessings. He was able to drive to an animators conference in Salt Lake City and pick up several jobs that helped provide for his family while keeping his mind busy.
He also met potential investors and other people who might be able to help push his Rumpelstiltskin project forward.
But three months ago, his health took a dramatic turn.
The turn
In December, Eddie started having problems walking. He went to the doctor, and a scan in January showed the tumor was spreading farther into his brain and throughout his body.
With extensive treatment, doctors said Eddie's life expectancy was eight to 12 months.
"He wasn't sure if that's how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. We had a really big prayer, and people all over were fasting and praying for us," Mary says. "He decided to stop treatment and spend the rest of his time with us."
As his family gathered to celebrate McKaylee's 13th birthday on Feb. 19, Eddie lost feeling on the left side of his body. He was eating a pink cookie in honor of his daughter and went to put half of it in a sandwich bag.
"He couldn't pick up the bag with his left hand. That's when I knew this was different," Mary says. "I still have that pink cookie and look at it as kind of our last sense of normalcy and how things were. I knew things were now changing."
Eddie was taken to the emergency room and consulted with his doctors at Huntsman. They told him he likely has another two to four months to live, so he and Mary decided to begin hospice care.
The end
The day after I learned Eddie wanted to see me, I drove to the Grampps' home in Rexburg. There, parked in the garage, was the SUV with a license plate frame reading, "Secret Santa Loves Me."
I rang the doorbell and met Mary for the first time. (She was gone the day we delivered the car.) She invited me upstairs, where Eddie was lying in a hospital bed facing an open window.
He reached out his hand and grabbed mine. He told me how much the SUV has blessed his family and how he's glad he can leave his wife with a reliable vehicle.
"I'm so glad that God put her in my life because she is, by far, the best thing that has happened to me. And if getting brain cancer was the only way that I could have met her and been with her, then I still have gotten the better deal out of it all," he said.
Mary, sitting by his side, repeatedly said, "He's so sweet," and called him an angel during our visit.
When asked how their children are doing, Mary said the older boys learned some coping skills 10 years ago when their sister died. But she admits they're worried about Molly, who is now 9 years old.
"Our hearts are really breaking, obviously, for all of our kids, but little Molly, it's really affecting her," Mary says. "Recently she said, 'How come bad things happen to our family a lot?' I said, 'Molly, that's a good question. A lot of things have happened to us, but a lot of things happen to a lot of people. Here's something we do know: We get through them and we're OK.'"
Part of the reason Eddie believes he's beaten the odds and survived 13 years with an inoperable brain tumor is because of people in Rexburg. The community has "made the hard days a lot easier," he says, and he is comforted knowing his family will have support when he's gone.
Eddie turns 42 on April 15, and his and Mary's 20th wedding anniversary is on May 20. He's unsure if he will be here for either occasion, but is OK with that.
"He is at so much peace. He honestly is ready to go," Mary says. "Obviously, he's very worried about leaving me and the kids, but he's come to terms with the fact that we are nearing the end."
Eddie still carries McKaylee's plastic toy egg in his pocket. Mary says it's been a "huge part" of him for the past 10 years, and he plans to be buried with it.
One thing he doesn't want to go with him? "Golden: A Rumpelstiltskin Tale."
And that's why I'm sitting next to Eddie's bed. He believes someone reading this may be able to help finish the project.
"I probably won't live long enough to see the animated final product, but I might live long enough to see a trailer made," Eddie says. "I vowed to do this in her honor 10 years ago. I've felt guilt about what happened, and I just really wanted to do something beautiful in her honor."
Looking out the window at the gray sky, Eddie pauses.
"McKaylee would be 13, and now that I've talked to you, I can tell her when I see her that I did everything I could to get her story out there."
