For victim's family, report brings relief, renewed sadness

ASHLAND -- His name can still be heard on his parents' answering machine. His initials are emblazoned on the license plate of his brother's pickup truck. On his parents' front walk is a stone engraved with the dates that, like bookends sitting too close together, marked his 26-year life.

Reminders of Kevin Kane's life and his death abound in the Kane family home.

But yesterday, his presence was felt powerfully throughout Ashland. Public health authorities presented the results of a study connecting the former Nyanza Inc. chemical and dye facility to a higher risk of cancers in the town.

During the 11 months between the time he was diagnosed with cancer and when he succumbed to the disease, Kane began a quest that ended in yesterday's report. Unwilling to dismiss as coincidence the fact that he and friends he grew up with had fallen ill at very young ages, Kane began to do some research and demand answers.

Eight years after his death, his town got the answers.

''He had been doing research on Nyanza; he had been going to the library. Once he started looking into it, he felt definite that this was the cause," recalled his mother, Marie, yesterday.

Kevin Kane had angiosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that begins in the lining of blood vessels. It was originally detected in his lungs.

His father, Bernie, said his son began a letter-writing campaign asking authorities for an investigation into possible links between the old dye company site and the cancers that affected him and his friends.

Kevin Kane looked healthy till the end, if a little pale. He never lost weight. His mother said she would be inside sometimes, saying how terrible it was that this had happened, and Kevin would be outside washing the car. He played sports until the end, and told his father he would beat the disease.

Though he did not live to hear the results of the investigation, his relatives said they knew how he would have reacted to the study that confirmed his deepest suspicions.

''He would have said, 'Way to go!' " said Bernie Kane with a smile. ''Kevin was right; now we know he was right on."

''He probably would have been pretty excited," said his older brother Mike, 40. ''He stirred it up and he proved himself." '

The Kanes took up the lobbying effort after their son died in the summer of 1998.

Marie Kane not only pushed for the investigation, but helped to track down people who had lived in the area to participate in the state survey, she said. She kept in constant contact with officials from the Department of Public Health. With nine children in a small and close-knit community, the Kanes were well-positioned to lead the efforts.

''Everyone in this town knew or went to school with a Kane," said Barbara Cavallo Gallant, who lives in Ashland and participated in the study. ''If it weren't for that family really pushing the Nyanza issue and pushing for the study, this would never have come to light. There were people who wanted to forget it or leave it in the past, but they got the ball rolling, they spearheaded it."

For their part, the Kanes say they give a lot of credit to the Department of Public Health.

''They could have dropped the ball and rolled onto something else," Mike Kane said. ''It is nice to see a state agency working like that."

For Bernie and Marie Kane, it has been a long eight years. And yesterday, at their home, just hours before a community meeting on the study, they said they felt a sense of relief, if one tinged with renewed sadness.

''We are happy it's over, but sad it had to happen," Bernie Kane said.

For Marie Kane it has also brought meaning to a death that seemed so senseless.

''If there is any justification for Kevin's illness or why it happened to him, it's that there was a message through him that we have to be more cognizant of our environment and take care of it," she said.