INDIAN TRAIL, N.C. -- Brandon Elam's last breath came not long before midnight Tuesday -- three years after his fight with cancer began.

Within hours, the 16-year-old’s friends at Porter Ridge High School were creating a memorial. They splashed “Brandon” across the school rock and left their love in handwritten messages.

Principal Sam Basden said Brandon's friends couldn't stay away.

“We've made arrangements for them to come out of class if they were too emotional, and some have taken us up on that. And some have come out to the rock to commemorate him a little bit,” he said.

The teens hugged beneath balloons in – Brandon’s favorite – Carolina Panthers’ colors.

Brandon's death was, in the end, no surprise. He and his family decided last month to stop the treatments that had ravaged his body, but never stopped the cancer.

And yet, Brandon and his parents told Eyewitness News reporter Jim Bradley recently that it was that moment, when they stared at death, that death lost its power over them.

“Yes, we cried 10 to 15 minutes worth of crying. But there was like a peace over the house that night, peace I can't explain. The Lord was looking out for us, and he still is,” said Brandon’s father, Scott Elam.

The family says its faith has carried them beyond their tears to happier thoughts of happier times, and Brandon's mother's words of hope still echo.

“I just promised that, I know he would go to heaven, and he would be at peace and he would run around and play and do everything he was supposed to do,” Anita Elam said.

And that's exactly what Brandon clung to in his final days. He told Bradley that he was weary of the struggle and believed he was headed somewhere better.

“I think now it's kind of better off for me, just so I don't have to take all this pain no more,” Brandon said.

“Are you tired of it?” Bradley asked.

“Yeah, been fighting for like three years, almost four, and I'm just ready for it to be done,” he said.

When the end came, Brandon was surrounded by his family, and a community of friends not quite ready to let go.

Those who want to say their goodbyes can attend the visitation on Friday at 6 p.m. at Indian Trail First Baptist Church on Indian Trail Fairview Road. Brandon’s funeral will be held Saturday at noon, also at Indian Trail Baptist Church, with a graveside service immediately following at Forest Lawn East on Forest Lawn Drive in Weddington.

The family is asking that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Hometown Heroes through hometownheroesonline.com or by mail to Hometown Heroes of Union County, North Carolina, P.O. Box 953, Monroe, N.C., 28111-0953, Attention: Donnie Dixon, President, In Honor of Brandon Elam. Donations can also be made to Levine Children’s Hospital, C/O Carolinas Healthcare Foundation, P.O. Box 32861, Charlotte, N.C., 28232, In Honor of Brandon Elam.