Marine honors memory of childhood friend

LOVELAND - The pictures from the ultrasounds started coming in the mail while he was in Iraq. One would show a bunch of toes. Another would show a face. Cpl. O.J. Alvarado was about to become a father. He smiled every single time he thought about that.

It took the Marine about a second to come up with a name: Cody. It had to be Cody.

"I always wanted to name my child after him because he was such a good friend," Alvarado said.

He called home to his wife.

"I supported it 100 percent," Traci Alvarado said.

O.J. Alvarado and Cody Fisher started playing football together when they were 5. They hung out constantly. By the time they reached high school, they were hellions for sure, but they weren't the worst hellions out there. That's for certain.

Cody Fisher was 17 when the pain started.

"We thought it was originally a pulled muscle," his mother Joey Fisher said quietly.

The pain persisted. Cody Fisher went to the doctor and that's where he found out his life was about to change forever.

"He had Ewing's sarcoma, which is a very difficult childhood cancer," Joey Fisher said. "When we sat down with all of the doctors, they gave him about a 10 percent chance to live."

Cody Fisher's parents and friends were devastated. The guy who always had a soft spot for the underdogs was now facing some of the worst odds around.

"He said it's just like a football game. It's a different field and the coaches are different people. He said he was going to do the best he could," said his mother as a tear rolled down her cheek.

In 2004, Cody Fisher passed away.

Everyone took it really hard. O.J. Alvarado seemed to take it worse than most.

"When Cody got sick and when he passed away, O.J. was very disturbed by losing his friend," Joey Fisher said.

He could have gone in any number of different directions.

He decided to join the Marines.

"It made me realize that life is short and it doesn't really matter who you are. It's just that sometimes it's shorter for some than others," O.J. Alvarado said.

"Cody would have been so proud of him," Joey Fisher said. "That was something that Cody would have wanted to do."

So when Cpl. Alvarado learned in Iraq he was going to be a father, the name was the only name that made sense. There was only one issue.

During the pregnancy, Traci Alvarado learned the "he" was actually a "she."

Would Cody still work? They both wondered.

On one autumn day O.J. Alvarado stepped off the escalators at Denver International Airport and smiled when he saw his wife and his family waiting for him. Traci Alvarado was just days away from giving birth. He had made it back home in time.

Not too long after that, O.J. and Traci welcomed Codi Mae Alvarado into this world.

"We just decided that the only thing we needed to do was change the 'Y' to an 'I,'" O.J. Alvarado said.

Joey Fisher still can't talk about the gesture without thinking about her son, a son who was born on Christmas Day.

"Cody was my Christmas present," she said, her voice quivering.

O.J. Alvarado says he will tell his daughter everything about his best friend as soon as she's old enough to really understand it. Joey Fisher simply loves the thought of Codi Mae getting the chance to live her life.

"This will be a constant reminder that [Cody's] spirit will keep going. Yes, my son is not here, but he keeps passing his legacy along," she said.