This is my brother Christian M. Woyshner but throughout the years, he had plenty of names that people knew him by - 'Lower Case' and just plain old 'Chris' were the two most common occurrences as he was known by many but to those who knew him and got to spend time with him throughout the years, it pains my heart to let you all know that at 11:14 PM on May 31st, 2024, Christian passed away at Erie County Medical Center due to complications during his battle with Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma, a head and neck cancer that radically changed his life in a year and a couple of months.

This GoFundMe has been created as a way to alleviate funeral expenses and cremation/burial costs for my brother who fought a battle, not just with cancer, but all of his life.

Christian has always been a fighter and if you never got to meet him, I hope that the next few paragraphs do justice to his life and moreso, his legacy.

This is The Story of Christian.

Christian Matthew Woyshner, born June 28th, 1989, was the first-born son to my mother, Kristy Jo and the first person in a line of fighters to make his permanent mark in our family, standing out to me and my many siblings not only as our older brother, but our friend and somebody we could confide in.

When we were younger, Chris was always there to take care of me and my siblings when mom and dad where away and while he may have felt like a youthful dictator in his own right, he was just a kid trying to get his bearings and trying to put us on the right path.

The statement "he was just a kid" is something that will always stand true - at heart, Christian always was a kid fighting for the childhood that he never had and it showed in his love for cooking, for his big pitbull puppy, Lightning, his love for gardening, and his care for each and every one of his siblings until his final moments.

It takes a big heart to love eight siblings as deeply as Chris did and during the COVID pandemic when the world was shutting down, he showed me that love when he brought me into his household to finish high school when I had nowhere else to go. In a time that I felt so alone and lost, he was there to help me celebrate my 18th birthday, to support my hopes and dreams of succeeding in digital media, and to make sure I was safe when I accidentally ate some of his peanut butter cookie edibles; through and through, when I felt like the world had it out for me, Christian was the star in my life that shone brighter than any other.

He was the loudest during the Super Bowl, he was the craziest on New Years Eve where every year without fail, he would blast Psychostick's live concert event on his surround sound like there was no tomorrow, and every night, he would have a hot meal ready for me and his girlfriend, always putting others before himself because it's all he knew.

Christian never wanted to die and I think it's only natural to feel this way - why would a man at thirty-four years of age want to give up a life that was so full of love, even though he carried a lot of burden and pain through it?

During the final month, of Christian's life, something that became apparent to me was that he put his life in the hands of God and if you would have asked me even a year ago what Chris thought about God, he would tell you not to pray for him because only bad things would happen to him when people would pray for him. At the time, I thought it was a general hatred for religion as per his stances on everything towards the end of his high school career, he was a bit of a metal head anarchist who wanted to see the world burn but during that last month, I believe it was because he had a lot of fear - fear for the unknown, fear of how his dog and Jill would be taken care of, and fear for how life would treat his brothers and sisters with him gone.

I do not know what the future has in store, but I do know that in the long run of life, I will be a better person because of how my brother has profoundly impacted my life, and I hope to those that had been a part of his, that they are able to share some of the same, special sentiments.

Rest in peace, to the best brother I could ever ask for.

I love you.