When our kids were younger, we took a family vacation to Snowshoe, West Virginia and stayed at the local ski resort. Despite the fact that it was summer and obviously there was no snow, it was a great vacation with lots to do. One of those things was a skate park with a halfpipe.
Nick was a skater wannabe. He loved watching extreme sports, especially Shaun White. Shaun made it look so easy. Surely Nick could do the same thing. So it only took a few seconds, while I wasn’t looking, for Nick to climb to the top of that halfpipe with his skateboard and get in position to dive over the edge.
If I wouldn’t have stopped him, just in time, I am confident that it all would’ve ended with some broken bones and stitches. He was not happy when I told him he was not allowed to try the stunt. He was sure that he could do it. I told Nick to stay at the top of the halfpipe so that I could, at least, snap a picture. It’s one of my favorite memories to this day.
CAN DO ATTITUDE
Several years later, Nick would take the same attitude when he decided that he wanted to play the guitar. He thought that if he only had a guitar then he would teach himself to play.
Ten days after he began treatment for cancer at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital he received a guitar from the hospital Santa on Christmas morning. All morning long he strummed that guitar from his hospital bed while chemotherapy dripped into his bloodstream through the tube from the central line in his chest.
Several days later he found out that he could take free lessons from a guitar teacher through St. Jude. His teacher told me later that Nick not only caught up to the other students who had been playing for quite some time but he passed them up and quickly became the best of the class.
As I remember the optimistic, can-do spirit of my son, I feel like I really can run this half marathon on December 3. This morning, I logged another 5 mile run, something that I would have never thought I could have accomplished just a few months ago.
I’m pretty sure that in the seconds before the half marathon begins, I will feel like I’m on a skateboard at the top of a halfpipe waiting to go over the edge! I know that I won’t be the best or win any medals for speed but maybe, just maybe, I might win a different sort of prize…a sense of great accomplishment that I have actually done something I never thought was possible. I’ve already been through the worst when Nick died. Everything else in life is cake…even a half marathon.
ROCKSTAR
Just this morning, my good friend and fellow cancer mom, Jamie, wrote about Nick and called him “Nick the 15 year old rockstar”. He would have loved that! One urban dictionary defines a rockstar as…“Someone who doesn’t follow rules, they make their own. The go out of their way to be extraordinary, different from everyone else.”
Yep. Nick was a rockstar.
What keeps us from being a rockstar, someone who is not afraid to be different or extraordinary? What if we stood out from the crowd so that our lives might make a positive impact on someone else?
The world might just be a little bit better.
Song #14 on my Race Day Playlist is Sk8erBoi by Avril Lavigne. It is a song that’s on Nick’s iPod and I love it because it will always remind me of him.
So channel your inner rockstar, turn up the volume, throw up your rawkfist, and enjoy Sk8erBoi!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIy3n2b7V9k
He was a boy.
She was a girl.
Can I make it anymore obvious?
He was a punk.
She did ballet.
What more can I say?
He wanted her.
She’d never tell.
Secretly she wanted him as well.
And all of her friends stuck up their nose.
They had a problem with his baggy clothes.
He was a skater boy.
She said, “See ya later, boy.”
He wasn’t good enough for her.
She had a pretty face but her head was up in space.
She needed to come back down to earth.
Five years from now, she sits at home feeding the baby.
She’s all alone.
She turns on TV and guess who she sees?
Skater boy rockin’ up MTV.
She calls up her friends.
They already know.
And they’ve all got tickets to see his show.
She tags along,
Stands in the crowd,
Looks up at the man that she turned down.
He was a skater boy.
She said, “See ya later, boy.”
He wasn’t good enough for her.
Now he’s a superstar
Slammin’ on his guitar
Does your pretty face see what he’s worth?
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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
If you would like to know more details of Nick’s story, you can visit his CaringBridge site here…