St. Peregrine Laziosi, who lived from 1260-1345 A.D., was miraculously cured of a painful cancer in his right leg the night before the leg was to be amputated to keep the disease from spreading.

The memorial garden will be the site of a special prayer service for all people with cancer, and for those who have loved ones with cancer (or who have lost loved ones to cancer), Saturday, May 1, at 11 a.m.

The garden is situated just north of St. Rene Goupil Church, on Ryan Road, between 15 Mile Road and Metropolitan Parkway in Sterling Heights.

Sr. Schmidlin says the prayer service will be held every year on the first Saturday of May, but added it is especially appropriate for the first one to be held on May 1, as St. Peregrine was both born and died on that date.

"Even if it rains, we're still going to have it, but we'll just go into the social hall and all face out that way," she says.

The statue was given in memory of former St. Rene Goupil parishioner Kenneth Scott, who died of cancer May 25, 2001. Scott had urged his parents to use some of the proceeds from his estate for a statue for the church, and Sr. Schmidlin suggested a St. Peregrine statue for the memorial garden.

Between them, Sr. Schmidlin and Fr. Fred Schweihofer, pastor of St. Rene Goupil, made daily visits to Kenneth Scott during his final illness, recall his parents, Gerald and Elizabeth Scott of Sterling Heights. "Sr. Mary and Fr. Fred were just great," Gerald Scott says.

The Scotts are members of SS. Cyril & Methodius Parish, also in Sterling Heights.

Their son had made remarkable progress in recovering from cancer, under the care of Dr. Vainutis Vaitkevicius of the Karmanos Cancer Institute, before a final flare-up made his condition terminal, the Scotts recount.

"When that happened, I said to him, 'Please, Ken, don't hate God for this,' and he said, 'Why would I hate God? He's given me 41 great years,'" Elizabeth Scott recalls.

Kenneth Scott never married, but was a wonderful uncle to his nieces and nephews, his parents say. "He just left goodness behind – no kids," Elizabeth Scott says.

"Ken lived a very good life. He was very religious, and just the perfect son you could ever want," Gerald Scott adds. The Scotts have five other children and 12 grandchildren.

They visited the Gustave A. Fuchs Co. of Madison Heights to see what kind of St. Peregrine statues were available. They found they could have a bronze statue of the saint cast in Europe and shipped over.

When it arrived the statue looked different from the one they had seen pictured. It was St. Peregrine, all right, but he was smiling instead of bearing the dour expression of the one in the catalogue. "It reminded us so much of Ken's smile," Gerald Scott says.

The statue was set into the memorial garden designed by Dennis Maguet of Shores Landscape Inc. of St. Clair Shores. "Our only disappointment is that more people aren't making use of it. It isn't just for Catholics, it's for anyone who's having a problem with cancer," Gerald Scott adds.

The Scotts say Kenneth lived his final days in a calm assurance he was leaving to be with Jesus.

His mother recalls how he planted dozens of tulip bulbs outside his house after learning his condition was terminal, prompting one neighbor to ask her why he was planting all those tulips he would never live to see. "I said, 'How do you know he'll never see them?'" Elizabeth Scott recalls, though she acknowledges the expectation was that Kenneth would not live until spring.

"But he did get to see his tulips," she continues. "He had moved in with us so we could take care of him, but we were able to drive him by his house one last time before he died, and the tulips were in bloom."