When his doctor explained in 1995 that surviving leukemia meant he needed to ask a stranger for bone marrow, Chris Pablo was uncomfortable asking for himself alone. So, he asked for everyone else as well.

It became a crusade for Pablo, whose need for a bone marrow transplant never got in the way of organizing community donor drives for others. After he beat the odds and survived, Pablo decided he wasn't finished helping.

For 13 years, the Käne'ohe father answered every request for advice. Every fearful patient — each one a stranger — received his full attention. He gave them hope. Pablo called it "the obligation of survivorship," the thing you did if you lived.

But survival had its limits. Pablo died yesterday at St. Francis Hospice in Nu'uanu. After living cancer-free for more years than he ever expected, Pablo was struck by two separate cancers in 18 months. He was 59.

His wife, Sandy, tempered her loss with gratitude .

"We just had all those extra years after the transplant," she said. "We got to raise our sons together. And he has done so much good work in the community and left such an indelible mark. It's too soon but we had the time we didn't think we would have."

Pablo was born in 1950 in Honolulu and grew up in Mänoa. He graduated from Saint Louis School in 1968 and attended Santa Clara University , where he earned a degree in accounting. Pablo went on to receive a law degree from Santa Clara in 1975.

He was a special assistant to U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, director of government affairs for Hawai'i Medical Services Association and served for 15 years as director of public affairs for Kaiser Permanente. In 2007, he joined the law firm of Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel, concentrating on government relations and health policy law.

Pablo was active in health care legislation throughout his professional life. He worked on a successful amendment to patients rights legislation, worked with the Coalition for Tobacco Free Hawaii to ban indoor smoking, coordinated funding for breast and cervical cancer treatment for uninsured women, and helped the organ donor community develop legislation to promote anatomical gifts.

'EVERYONE MATTERS'

He was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia in the summer of 1995 and the outlook was bleak. Family members were tested for a potential bone marrow match. His son Nathan, then almost 7, told his father he would save his life. Telling the boy he couldn't was one of the hardest things Pablo had ever done.

At donor drives, Pablo stressed to people that their marrow might not match his own but could easily match another cancer patient. And he would remind them that on any given day, more than 6,000 patients nationwide are waiting for a bone marrow transplant.

Roy Yonashiro of the Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry was moved by Pablo from the very beginning. At donor drives, Pablo never sat around. He folded chairs, moved tables, thanked every person who stopped by, Yonashiro said.

"I asked him about his attitude toward life, why he is such a giving person," Yonashiro said. "He said, 'Because everyone matters. You matter. I matter. The other patients looking for donors.' That has always stayed with me. When I meet patients and donors, I think of Chris. Because everyone matters."

Pablo found his cure for leukemia in a man from Kaua'i and the two became friends. They sometimes spoke on the need for increased public awareness about the disease. As his recovery continued, Pablo became a busy volunteer for the American Cancer Society in Hawai'i. In October 2007, as the society's departing chairman of the board of directors, the society named Pablo its Patti Schuler Recognition Award recipient.

Transplant patients are told to expect some secondary form of cancer and this was true for Pablo. In July 2008, his doctors removed a cancer from his mouth, as well as a fourth of his tongue. They told him his new cancer was gone but in January 2009, they found tumors growing on his jaw and neck.

By spring, after risky surgery and lots of radiation and chemotherapy, they told him they had done all they could.

BRAVE TO THE END

Pablo's response was to do what he had always done. He kept helping. When people called him at home or stopped him on the street to ask for advice, he never told them he was sick.

"He was determined not to let the cancer dictate how his life would be," Nathan Pablo said.

In November, he and his wife attended a conference of health industry professionals on Kaua'i so Pablo could speak on health care reform.

"I don't know how he was able to stand up but he gave his speech," Sandy Pablo said. "The next day he was so sick and delirious."

Jackie Young, chief of staff for the American Cancer Society in Hawai'i and a cancer survivor herself, worked with Pablo to raise awareness about cancer issues in the Islands and on the Mainland. Pablo usually added a day to his trip so he could visit cancer patients, she said. He spoke often to children battling leukemia.

"He would tell them about his experience," she said. "He always made it a point to spend his extra time there telling people they were going to be OK and live with cancer."

Young visited Pablo a few days ago and came away with a precious moment so typical of her longtime friend.

"I bent down to say goodbye," she said, "and I started to cry. He said, 'Don't cry. Life is good.' Then he made his hands into a shaka."

Pablo is survived by his wife, Sandy; his mother, Rufina, of Honolulu; his brother Michael, of Nashville; sons Chris Enderton, 35, of California, Nathan, 20, and Zachary, 17; and one grandson.

A college fund is being established for his younger sons. Memorial services will be held in mid-January.