44 DAYS UNTIL RACE DAY!
(The purpose of this 16-week blog is to shine the light on childhood cancer by sharing our family’s personal experience as I prepare to run my first ever half marathon and raise money to help children with cancer and their families. Be a part of the story! Donate here: http://fundraising.stjude.org/site/TR/Heroes/Heroes?px=2078389&pg=personal&fr_id=59186 then share with your family and friends.)
I will never forget their faces.
The handsome, curly-headed 22 year old who battled cancer for 19 years since he was 3. The newborn babe in all of her pink cuteness, born with cancer, puffy steroid cheeks in all of her sweet baby pictures. The beautiful, smart and sassy teenage girl who was a cheerleader until cancer struck and the life she knew as normal was totally derailed.
All are gone now.
Last week we gathered in Memphis, Tennessee…families from around the world…to remember these and so many more children at the St. Jude Annual Day of Remembrance weekend.
As I walked through the rows of boards that held precious photos, keepsakes, and memories representing each child, I noticed that two of them had been pushed together. Two separate boards yet they were one. Pictures of two little boys, twins, diagnosed with brain tumors within 5 months of each other…then dying within 5 months of each other.
I stopped to look at their pictures, read their names, and ask their mom about their lives. She asked me about Nick and wondered how it has been for me to live 10 years without my son. Something, at just a year out, she cannot yet fathom.
I told her that on my worst days I focus on the fact that this life is so short and fleeting. And that in the end of it all, I will see Nick again and it will be forever. We will never have to say goodbye. She said that she thinks of the same thing.
We hugged and cried, two moms missing their boys…but not without hope.
Is Hope Lost in the Black Skies?
I love when I get the chance to watch the sun rise or set from above the clouds. Last week I was lucky enough to see both. On Thursday, my flight to Memphis took off from the Pittsburgh airport in the dark, wee hours of the morning. I flew back home late into the night on Saturday.
In the early morning hours, light pierces the dawn and darkness is no more. In the evening, the earth rotates and blocks the light, bringing darkness to one side of the earth. Yet the source of light is still there. It burns bright 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Sometimes things happen in life that seem to block the light and cause us to feel like hope is lost and we are doomed to walk in darkness. It’s in those times that we have to remind ourselves that the light is still present. That even though we can’t see it in the moment, it will appear again eventually and darkness will be no more.
When the sun sets, do you ever worry that it will not rise in the morning? No. Because you know that even though you can’t see it, the sun is still there and it will be back again at just the right time.
Hope for a new day.
Even though it has not yet arrived, you know it’s coming because “faith is the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)
Wait With Me Here ‘Til the Sunrise
The death of a child is a loss so profound that it has the ability to make you feel like hope is lost.
I get asked all the time if the work that I do is too hard for me or if I ever thought about not doing this anymore. Isn’t it too much to always reach out to parents who have lost a child when my own child also died? The short answer is this…it is the hardest best thing that I do.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that God has called me to comfort the mourning, to bring light into the darkness, to give hope to those who have lost sight of hope. It is something I feel compelled to do and something that I can’t get away from, even if try.
Several years ago, my husband and I went on an Adventures by Disney trip out west. Everyone who was going on the trip had to meet in Phoenix, Arizona to get on a bus that would take us to our next destination. As we all gathered in the Phoenix airport, I heard someone speaking in the much familiar accent that sounded like many of my friends in Memphis. I approached this young girl and asked her where she was from. “Memphis, Tennessee” was her reply. We talked more and I discovered that this girl knew some of my friends who work at St. Jude. After telling her why I am often in Memphis she confided that she had brought her mother on the trip because several months earlier her brother had died and she thought it would be good for her mom to get away for awhile.
Throughout that week on our vacation, I spent much time with this older, grieving mother. She told me stories about her boy. I told her stories about mine. One morning as we were on our way to breakfast she approached me very excitedly to say that she had had a dream about her son the night before and when she woke it felt like she had been with him. A glimmer of light in the darkness.
Joy in the pain.
Hope in the sorrow.
Day of Remembrance weekend came to a close and we stood outside together feeling the full weight of the collective sorrow…so many grieving families held onto their balloons as we spoke out loud that we will always remember. As we let go of our balloons and watched them drift up to the heavens, I heard one mom yelling out with excitement “Look! It got stuck in the tree! My balloon is in the tree! My boy loved to climb trees!”
Hold on…daylight is coming.
Turn up the volume and enjoy song #59 on my Race Day Playlist…Daylight by Remedy Drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzyYii4ZXRw
Has everything you’ve counted on
Left you right here with no warning?
Have your dreams become invisible?
Wait with me, dear, till the morning
Light will make the night burnout
Hold on Daylight is coming
To break the dawn
Daylight is coming
The brightest stars are falling down
Is hope lost in the black skies?
The darkness must precede the dawn
Wait with me here till the sunrise
Wait, your night will soon fade out
Be part of the story! Donate here…
If you are unable to donate financially, please consider passing along this message to others who can. Thank you!
http://fundraising.stjude.org/site/TR/Heroes/Heroes?px=2078389&pg=personal&fr_id=59186
Many of you who are reading this most likely know our Backstory, or at least part of it. If you don’t and would like to know more details of Nick’s story, you can visit his CaringBridge site here…