Mother of teen that battled cancer says he fought for his family

NAPOLEONVILLE, LA (WAFB) - This isn’t a story about a young man that lost his battle with cancer just days before the new year. It’s a story about fearlessness and strength.

“August 14, he told me at St. Jude that he wasn’t going to be here for 2019. I brushed it off,” said Dominique Landry-White, Ziggy’s mother. “I was like, ‘yeah, Ziggy don’t talk like that.’ He knew.”

Armond Ziggy Landry from Napoleonville was in the 9th grade when a sudden change in his health prompted a string of doctor’s visits. Call it mother’s intuition but Ziggy’s mom, Dominique knew something was wrong.

“We kept going back and forth basically for about a month with appointments doing antibiotics, steroids,” she said. “I knew it was more than something as simple as a cold.”

After a series of tests, on October 11, 2015, Ziggy was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Leukemia.

“It didn’t bother him. He wasn’t ashamed of it. He was always still Ziggy. He was happy and upbeat about it,” his mother said.

His optimism and smile carried him through his battle with cancer and into remission, but this February, the family found out the Leukemia was back.

“They never could get it under control after February. The chemo would just help for a few weeks and then it would come right back,” Landry-White said.

Ziggy contracted pneumonia in August. His mom said it was a lot for him to handle. Despite his diagnosis, Ziggy’s mom says he always put others' needs before his own. It’s why he pushed himself to take his younger cousins to the zoo in Memphis for Christmas.

“He really, really fought to the end. He refused to be down,” she says.

The next day, Ziggy’s mom says he woke up with the strangest question. Ziggy wanted to make sure it wasn’t still Christmas Day.

“I said, ‘today is Wednesday Ziggy,’” she recalls. Ziggy replied, “You sure it’s not still Tuesday?” His mom says he then said, “’oh, today is the day.’”

Twenty minutes later, 18-year-old Ziggy was gone.

“In his dad’s arms. I was standing next to him. We were holding him and he passed away. He knew he was ready and tired. He did everything he wanted to do,” his mom says. The young man who insisted on smiles instead of tears throughout his journey, pushed to see Christmas not for himself but for his family.

“He said, ‘I’m not afraid to die but I’m afraid to leave everyone because I don’t know how you all will handle it.’ I told him I didn’t want him to carry that, but I knew it was something he had to do for himself before he left. He wanted to make sure certain people would be okay with him leaving,” his mother said.

Now the family says they'll use his strength to carry them through the new year.

“He didn’t want to be sad about it, so we couldn’t be sad about it.”

Funeral arrangements for Armond “Ziggy” Landry can be found below.

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