Andrew Anderson was someone faculty and students alike saw as a person who was easy to like and admire, and someone who seemed to look at life with an unusually optimistic outlook.
However, when some of the music faculty and students found out about his terminal liver cancer, they looked at him with, if it was possible, more admiration. Christine Crookall, associate professor of music, knew Anderson from various music classes and said she could see from the very beginning that he possessed more of a maturity and confidence in what he wanted to achieve compared to younger students.
“That turning point is when I realized what he was living with,” Crookall said. “He had been diagnosed with this horrible cancer and no one knew how to treat it. I guess it allowed me to understand him in some ways a little bit better as far as where his drive was coming from.”
Anderson found out about his cancer a few years earlier, and, at the time, the prognosis did not look well. According to Robert Foster, professor of music, the doctors only gave him a few months, but Anderson lived for 10 years before recently passing away in May, displaying his fortitude and strength.
“His love of music was apparent right at the very beginning,” Crookall said. “He was really, really driven from the first moment I met him and he was always asking me what he could do to improve on this (or) that.”
Anderson received a degree dealing with computers at first; however, he realized where his true passions lie and returned to Augusta State University to pursue a degree in music. He was involved with many of the music groups on campus, including the wind ensemble and jazz ensemble. He graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor’s of Musicm, and Foster said that Anderson was determined and reliable the entire time.
“He seemed really mature, dedicated, hardworking, had a great sense of humor. I mean really, really funny,” Foster said. “He loved music; he was very friendly with people, very helpful to other students.”
After he graduated, he headed to Sweden for a couple of years and ended up coming back to teach students about music and show them why he was passion- ate about it and why they should be as well. According to Foster, whom formed a band called Pulsar , which Anderson was the backbone of and where he played percussion. They were also very close and Foster supported Anderson with not only his music but his disease.
“I went over to his house when he was in the final stages a few times,” Foster said. “He was just still cracking, there were times when he was kind of out of it, because he was really heavily medicated with the pain medication, because he was wasting away before every one’s eyes, but he just kept his spirit, it was right there.”
Foster and his wife made a customized recording for Anderson, a healing CD for fighting cancer, and Foster said that that was when the most amazing things came out of Anderson. This was one of his answers to the questions that they asked him during the process.
“The biggest goal is to be rid of the cancer,” Anderson said. “However, I never want to lose sight of the empowering nature of this disease. If one looks past the obvious horrors of the disease itself I believe he or she will find the greatest B.S. filter of all time. Cancer has taught me true focus, discovering what the true priorities in my life are and how to focus on them.”