Dear Friends,

Our son, Ben Lockhart, passed away on October 12, 2019, after a battle with a rare and aggressive type of cancer called myxoid liposarcoma. He fought very hard and endured surgeries, radiation and several types of chemotherapy. He was treated at the Sarcoma Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and his care and clinical trials were led by his primary oncologist, Dr. Sandra D'Angelo.

By donating via this page, you will be contributing directly to Dr. D'Angelo's research fund. Finding the right drugs and drug combinations, coordinating genetic testing with targeted therapies, and conducting clinical trials are all in their nascent stages. We hope that future generations will benefit from the scientific discoveries made here.

Throughout every stage of this disease, Ben was filled with an amazing energy for life and remained absolutely himself: funny, philosophical and wise; a loving partner to his girlfriend Meg; and playing, writing and recording music with friends until his final days. He celebrated his 26th birthday surrounded by friends and family, and he was present and grateful for the love all around him. It is unthinkable that he is gone from our lives forever.

Many of you knew Ben as he was growing up, and you knew him to be funny, challenging, passionate, iconoclastic, brilliant, stubborn, fantastically original and deeply compassionate. He followed an unconventional path from high school to Budapest to Korea in order to study the game of Go, building a devoted and studious life in Seoul. He competed in tournaments around the country and around the world. He lived an intense life of love and art, always searching for meaning. We are fortunate that some of his adventures are captured in his brother Will’s movie, "The Surrounding Game." We are so absolutely proud of the man Ben became.

As Will said at our memorial gathering, "I do not want to think of Ben’s as a life cut tragically short. I want to see it as he did - as a life deeply and fully lived."

Thank you all for being an important part of Ben's life journey.

Love, Kate, Paul and Will