In a world without cancer, Dylan Tombides would be looking forward to his 21st birthday on Sunday with his name up in lights among West Ham United and Australia fans through his gift for goals.
The future burned bright for the wise-cracking kid from Perth before the dreaded disease intervened – cutting him down last April, leaving potential unrealised and unbearable heartache for a family that came from the other side of the world so he could follow his football dream.
Three years to the month after being wrongly told by a London GP that a lump in one of his testicles was a harmless cyst, Tombides died after his chemotherapy-battered organs shut down.
Incredibly, three months earlier he made four appearances for Australia at the AFC U-22 Championships in Oman, only weeks after undergoing yet another brutal round of chemo as the cancer refused to loosen its grip on him.
It's the non-stop banter and mickey-taking from a son as sharp with his wit off the field as he was with his feet on it, that mother Tracy misses most.
"He was such a bubbly personality - the house was alive with him there," said Tracy, who was front and centre at Upton Park last weekend for the official launch of the DT38 Foundation, which she set up to promote awareness and push for mandatory ultrasounds and blood tests for those who present with testicular lumps.
There was a poignant 60 seconds applause from both sets of fans in the 38th minute of the clash between West Ham and Crystal Palace in honour of the light that has been turned out – with Dylan's number 38 jersey already retired, just like that of Hammers and England great Bobby Moore who also succumbed to cancer.
Fans and players also wore DT38 Foundation T-shirts in his memory.
After 11 months, his loss still feels raw. Tracy and father Jim "who lost his best friend" miss their son every moment of every day and her voice quavered with emotion when she said: "Dylan would always find something to laugh about, find somebody to poke fun at, to get stuck into, in the most humourous and harmless of ways.
"The golf course, the snooker table or just sitting on the couch, with Jim and his (Dylan's) brother Taylor, everything was fair game for him. You almost had to wake up looking your best otherwise you were in his sights."
There's a video on the foundation’s website – – which Tracy watches with special pride.
"It shows his team-mates talking about him and saying if their heads were down after a bad day at training he would be the one to cheer them up,” she explains.
“It’s lovely when you hear people say that about your son, that's the sort of person he was. He had his own problems but was always thinking about others."
West Ham's ex-Youth Director, Tony Carr, identified Tombides as a star in the making to boss Sam Allarydce - but each time he was close to a breakthrough there would be more setbacks and treatments.
Allarydce, who handed Dylan his debut in September 2012, recounted: "You couldn't have fought any harder than Dylan and his family.
"The hard thing to take, when Dylan finally lost the fight, was the amount of times we saw him come back from illness to a strapping young footballer again and it looked like it was all going in the right direction and then again and again it came back.
"It was the bravery of the lad that impressed me the most, he was fighting back to come and play football more than anything else.
"He should be an inspiration to young players who played with him, or who were younger than him, to make a career for themselves in the game."
Dylan remains so alive to Tracy that she sometimes lapses into talking of him in the present tense.
In the 10 months it has taken to form the foundation she has often found herself speaking to him, as if he were in the same room.
"If people listen to me at times, they must wonder who the hell I am talking to," she mused
"I ask Dylan out loud whether he's happy with what we are doing. I ask him if it's what he wants."
It took an abnormal random test at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in June 2011 to alert Dylan to his condition.
"Unfortunately, in Dylan's case there was the ignorance over the illness (even within the medical profession) and those were crucial months where it went undiagnosed," Tracy recalled.
"I want to see the guess work taken out of it in the future. Dylan fought so hard, he never once believed he woudn't get on top of it.
"He was physically and mentally prepared to battle it. But his organs had been poisoned and that's what he ultimately died from."
There was a brief window in September 2013 when Tombides was declared cancer free and he spoke at length to The World Game of his fight for life and a planned future of football and fulfilment.
But within months the cancer was back, more virulent and treatment-resistant than ever.
Tracy spent every minute of every hospital visit with Dylan - who continued to train and play through the course of his treatments - sometimes sleeping in a chair next to his bed as he underwent a chain of surgeries to remove lymph nodes, then tumours from his liver. There was also the stem cell therapy and myriad chemo sessions.
Finally, doctors told the family 13 months ago there was no more they could do, heralding a journey to a cancer clinic in Germany in search of a last-ditch cure.
While he never met Dylan, Australia and Crystal Palace skipper Mile Jedinak is an ambassor of the foundation, having forged a deep bond with the family over the past year.
Jedinak declined to celebrate scoring the winner against the Hammers at Upton Park last April, just a day after Dylan's death, and has been at the family’s side ever since.
"Our families have spent a lot of time together ... they are very strong people who resonated with me the moment I met them," Jedinak said of the Tombides clan.
"I just wanted to help in any way I could. I am grateful for the relationship that has developed, culminating in the launch of the foundation.
"Maybe there was a bit of fate there ... I spoke with Tracy and Jim after that game last year. As hard as it was, we had that instant connection."
Jedinak has no doubts that Tombides was destined to scale great heights in the game.
"I heard so many great things about him as a player from so many people," he said. "He was a real prospect, tragically taken away from us far too soon. He was going to achieve big things."
Taylor, 19, has moved into Dylan's room and has left everything as it was in a way of staying close to the essence of his brother.
He has been a part of the Hammers' academy for the past three years but is about to embark on a trial with English Premier League Hull City as he forges his own career path.
"It was bitter sweet on Saturday at Upton Park ... I could very well have been there to watch my son playing but it wasn't to be," Tracy said.
"Now we want Taylor to be able to live his dream. And we'll be there for him."
