Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine offered a touching tribute to the late Henry Delaney, leading fans to research his tragic story.
Henry Delaney Tribute in Deadpool & Wolverine Explained
During the credits of Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine, a tribute was listed for Henry Delaney.
Rob Delaney, who plays the non-powered Peter in Deadpool 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine, is Henry's father. Tragically, the young infant passed away in early 2018, with the message in the credits reading, "For Henry Delaney."
Rob Delaney recently spoke about his son's passing on Today with Hoda & Jenna (via People).
He explained how his son was diagnosed with a brain tumor "right around his first birthday," passing away in February 2018. The tumor was said to be "in the back of his head near his brain stem," causing various physical disabilities:
"In 2018, my son Henry, he died of a brain tumor that he was diagnosed with right around his first birthday. And yeah, he died in the beginning of 2018 and he was just the sweetest little most wonderful guy. We say that about all of our kids but Henry was better than other children. And he was so funny and his brain tumor was in the back of his head near his brain stem, so it brought him a lot of physical disabilities because that stuff is controlled back there."
Praising his son, he reminisced about all of Henry's qualities, even noting how he learned sign language since he was not able to talk:
"But his frontal lobe was fine so he was very funny and smart and charming and gorgeous and flirty and silly and brilliant. He learned sign language cause he couldn’t talk cause he had a tracheostomy."
Delaney wrote a book about what he went through losing his son, which is titled A Heart That Works (available on Amazon). He wanted to "elucidate how awful it is" going through something like this while admitting it's ok to not have gotten over the tragedy:
"I always thought there’s a lot of stuff written about grief where people are kind of like, ‘And then one day the sun came out again.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, enough of that crap. It’s a nightmare and I figured the best thing I could do was sort of elucidate how awful it is. And let the reader glean hope by seeing that my family is okay now but I didn’t want to prescribe it like, ‘It’ll all be fine.’ Cause a lot of things aren’t fine."
Even with how sad it was, Delaney still loves talking about his son, not knowing how to avoid the discussion since Henry was such a big part of the family:
"No, I love to talk about him. He’s my son, I’m his dad. His brothers miss him, his mom misses him, and he’s part of our family, so I don’t know how to not talk about him."
Delaney initially posted the news on Facebook, remembering the fun adventures they had "after he'd moved home following 15 months living in hospitals:"
"Henry was a joy. He was smart, funny, and mischievous and we had so many wonderful adventures together, particularly after he'd moved home following 15 months living in hospitals."
On April 16, 2018, Delaney posted to X (formerly Twitter) to celebrate what would have been Henry's third birthday, sharing a picture of him shortly before his passing. This included a look at the "tracheostomy tube on his neck" and his eye that turned into the center of his face due to nerve damage from surgery:
"Here’s Henry not long before he died. You can see his little tracheostomy tube on his neck and his left eye is turned in due to nerve damage from surgery. He has a bus & a turtle though so he’s happy. He was such a sweet boy."
The Direct sends its deepest condolences and well wishes to Rob Delaney, his family, his friends, and the entire Marvel community regarding this loss.
Deadpool & Wolverine is now playing in theaters.
