Parents Honor Memory Of Son By Handing Out Gifts To Hospitalized Children

(CBS) -- Three years ago, as cancer ravaged their son, a Chicago couple made a promise.

CBS 2's Jim Williams saw it in action at St. Anthony Hospital.

With every toy and kind word, Tom and Lucy Sanchez are fulfilling their son's dying wish.

"He would have been grabbing the toys and handing them out. He just loved doing that," Tom Sanchez says.

For six years, as Tommy Jr. battled bone cancer, despite his own pain, he was sensitive to the children around him, his parents say.

"He would always tell me 'Dad, I want to do something special for the children here at the hospital,'" the father says.

Adds Lucy Sanchez: "He would see the sick kids, crying, being left alone … That's where he got the idea to start this."

The idea: to hand out toys to the young patients.

Tommy died shortly before Christmas 2013, a week before his 24th birthday,

"He told me on his death bed, 'Mom, I feel so bad because I was never able to do my wish, to give the toys to the children at the hospital,'" Lucy Sanchez says. "I'm like, 'Tommy, I promise you I will do it for you.'"

On Tuesday, his parents and sister, Crystal, made the rounds at St. Anthony Hospital, going from room to room, bringing hundreds toys donated by Tommy's friends and family.

For more information, go to facebook.com/TommysGifts.