Name: Will Huggins
Age: 45
Lives in: Mattapoisett
How he got here: His parents, both local natives, eloped to Idaho but returned home with young Will in tow after a short stint; he’s been here ever since.
Favorite Tri-Town place: Goodspeed Island / Eel Pond area, “But I have to ponder that one. There’s a lot of great spots.”
What he’d change if he were the President of Tri-Town: “I’d like to see more cultural diversity.”
By Jonathan Comey
When Will Huggins talks about old times, new adventures, events of the day, he’s animated, loud, laughing, and his eyes crinkle into amused slits.
But when he talks about matters of the human spirit, he gets quiet and still, and you have to lean in a bit – not just because his voice gets soft and slow, but because you want to hear what he has to say.
Having survived a series of cancer-related challenges over the last nine years, beating some fairly long odds in the process, Huggins feels he’s learned one wonderful lesson.
“I had no idea how good people could be,” he said. “I knew certain people, but I guess I didn’t know how good everyone really was. I was a little more pessimistic, I guess, but I think I learned how much good people have in them.”
At the height of his battle with cancer (which is in remission, not “cured”), Huggins said he was down, physically and spiritually. But the people of the community came through for him, in ways that he wasn’t comfortable with at first.
“It changed me,” he said. “It was hard for me to accept help. I’m a proud guy, I’ve earned everything I have, worked hard for this decent little life I have right now.”
From a $10 bill attached to a prayer in the mail from a stranger to a check for $15,000 to defray medical costs, he was astounded and embarrassed to be the center of attention. When a friend from high school he only knew on an acquaintance level came to his house with $2,000 from her cancer-fighting foundation, it really clicked.
“I told my wife, ‘I’m doing this,’” he said. “It changed me.”
The I WILL fund, originally started by friend Julie Sherman to help the Huggins family, has now shifted gears to help other families battling cancer. Every year, the I WILL polar plunge “Freezin’ for a Reason” on New Year’s Day raises over $10,000 – with all proceeds going directly to local people with cancer who could use the help.
“We just give them a check, no questions asked,” he said. “It’s a completely local effort, one hundred percent. I think that was one of the things for me, to justify taking the help, was to pay it forward. We take that seriously, my wife and I, and we try to instill that in our children.”
Will has a grown son, William, and lives with his wife Michelle and elementary school kids Cy and Olive. For Olive’s recent birthday, she requested that friends bring food for the needy instead of gifts; the family traveled to Wareham to donate the goods and ended up staying for a meal with the folks there.
In his younger days, Huggins might not have seen this future coming. Raised by a loving grandmother but with distant parents, “I was an angry kid, self abusive, drank myself into oblivion at times. I was sort of a yahoo crazy man at times in my life. I didn’t care about school, my health, anything. But that all changed, before I got sick even. Really, with the kids, no matter what, I was always a good dad.”
Huggins’ life is busy, running a successful building company and staying fit in mind and body, setting the tone for his family.
He doesn’t know what his future holds, health-wise, and doesn’t dwell on it. For him, it’s about the here and now – lessons learned the hard way.
“I guess I’ve got a heightened awareness of what matters,” he said. “And it’s relationships, it’s love, it’s your own soul, it’s doing the right thing. It’s being able to go to sleep at night with a good conscience.
“That’s what I think it’s all about.”