Megan Harrell, 30, a mother whose fight made family strong

One of Megan Harrell’s main concerns while fighting a fatal cancer was that she give her son the tools to be a good person.

Relatives say there’s no doubt Mrs. Harrell succeeded. Kevin Johnson Stevens, her 12-year-old son, is just like mom.

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Family photo

Megan Elizabeth Graham Harrell, 30, of Marietta, died Friday.

“He saw so much of what she went through on a daily basis,” said her mother, Mary Ann Johnson White of Marietta. “We’d see her joke with him in the sweetest ways to get him to smile. She wasn’t able to do much with him physically, but she would interact with him. I saw her spirit in him day after day. He has her strength and sense of humor. Her qualities.”

Megan Elizabeth Graham Harrell, 30, of Marietta died Friday of malignant thymoma at Tranquility Hospice in Austell. The memorial service is 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at Due West United Methodist Church in Marietta. Carmichael Funeral Home of Marietta is in charge of arrangements.

Mrs. Harrell was a 17-year-old Haralson High School student when she was diagnosed with cancer. The illness and its treatments made it impossible for the Atlanta native to attend school. She earned a GED.

Initially, medical treatments seemed to be working, but the tumor returned more progressively in 2000. Mrs. Harrell moved with her mother to Houston to see specialists and undergo treatments available at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

“We’d be there six weeks at a time for radiation treatments and surgeries,” her mother said. “It was like sending your child into battle. You knew that she would get hurt, but this was her only chance to survive, and she took it.”

After a two-year stay in Houston, Mrs. Harrell returned to metro Atlanta. She walked into an office one day and recognized Sam Pierce Harrell III from her younger days. They married a year later and began raising Kevin, her son.

“One of her worst fears was that she’d leave her son at a tender age,” Mr. Harrell said. “I am thrilled she was able to live this long to give him a chance. She made us both strong; we will live the way she would have wanted us to.”

Despite her illness, Mrs. Harrell tried to live normally. She traveled the globe — London, Hong Kong, Mexico and Puerto Rico. And she took numerous courses at Kennesaw State University, where she’d recently enrolled in a creative writing course, Mr. Harrell said.

“She said if she had a dream, she’d work for a travel magazine and be a writer,” he said. “Traveling and writing were two things she could do and be very happy. If she had something on her mind, she’d like to get it off.”

Jan Schneider of Kennesaw befriended Mrs. Harrell five years ago. Mrs. Harrell often managed to show compassion for others when she wasn’t up to speed, Mrs. Schneider said.

“When I had my baby, she didn’t feel well, but she still wanted to come see me and come by with dinner,” she said. “I saw her for her 30th birthday, and though she was very frail, she looked very fashionable. She was a fashion queen.”

Additional survivors include her father, Camillus L’Engle Graham; her stepmother, Martha Graham; and her stepfather, Anthony White; all of Marietta.