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Where Brendan’s Been: Boston woman honoring her late husband one sticker at a time

BOSTON — Brendan and Lauren Maguire loved to travel almost as much as they loved each other. They traveled for six years and were married in October 2018, but Brendan was sick and an aggressive form of brain cancer was taking over his body.

“It went undiagnosed until February 21, which is when we saw the scan that he had a tumor on his brain stem,” said Lauren Maguire.

Operations failed, Brendan did not wake up from his coma and Lauren had to say her last goodbye six months after their wedding.

“It was by far the hardest day of my life, but it was really incredible to say goodbye in such an honoring way for him,” said Maguire.

Honoring Brendan led to an idea. When his family found cartoon versions of Brendan that he had made in college, they turned them into bumper stickers and started posting them around Boston. Soon, family and friends began snapping photos everywhere.

“Once we started seeing them in places like Japan and China and Argentina, I knew that we needed to be able to share them on a platform that a lot of people could see,” said Maguire.

She created the Instagram page, WhereBrendansBeen.

“He would laugh hysterically if he knew this was happening because he was such a humble, regular average guy,” said Maguire. One, she says, she sorely misses.

“It’s tough because looking at his face I still feel so sad and I miss him so much but there’s also something really comforting to have someone text you and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I just saw this bumper sticker in this random bar 200 miles, 600 miles, 800 miles from here,’” she said.

Brendan’s sparkling memory not only lives on, but it also travels.

“I’m waiting for that day to just run into one randomly and say, oh my gosh, Brendan we did, I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it you know we made you proud,” said Maguire.