Beautiful tribute

As part of the DFMC team, we have the opportunity to meet many people with just indomitable spirit and inspiring gifts.  This video was done by one of my teammates, Ed Feather, who lost his wife last year to cancer after five years of treatment.  I wrote about his two sons back in November because they shared with the team the "drum show" they had in the driveway to raise funds, and provide the kick-off for their dad's run this year. 

I love what he shares about the difference between her spirit and her body...physically her body just couldn't take any more of the treatments and just was done.  But, her spirit was always there and she never gave up.  It such a raw, honest and insightful picture into his feelings.

Cancer can do many things to families....it can bring them closer and make them stronger; it can force them to re-examine relationships and priorities; it can also show the cracks that may exist, causing them to get larger and relationships crumble.  What a gift he is giving his sons in spite of the hardships they have experienced.  He's setting such a strong example for his kids to continue to carry on.  He's helping them to remember their mother every day with such genuine respect and awe and love.  And to not give up.

I've been lucky enough over the past week to have shared my family's story with a few different groups.  It's lucky in the way that it's allowing us the opportunity to increase awareness and better the lives of patients and their families through the research funded by the DFMC.  Slightly unlucky in that the past week has been kind of a whirlwind of writing and talking and is pushing me a little outside of what is inherently comfortable for me!  Yes, I write this blog which puts a lot of stuff out into the vast spaces of the internet, but it's kind of an anonymously quiet little place where I have had the means to share my journey and my feelings with what is mostly an audience of friends and family.   The reach is now going to be a little broader and hopefully that will continue so we can continue to build on these efforts.  It's been a chance for me to really think about why I run, and the meaning of this team in my life, and what my hopes are for the future.  And what I want people to take from this story.

Some college friends of mine write for and manage a blog called StyleBlueprint, which started in Nashville and is now in a few different cities in the south.  They asked me to write a piece about "Why I Run" and it ran today.  Most of you who know me and saw "style" in that sentence are probably quite happy it wasn't a post about fashion in any sense of the word!  But as my friend, Liza, said it would be a post about style "as in reaching into your soul and finding your best self to hold your head high."  Which I think is what I want people to take from this.  We all need to find our best selves.  We have a choice to pick up and carry on from a bad meeting, from crying kids, for a broken relationship, to a devastating loss.  Do not get me wrong....I have days filled with complete sadness or overwhelming stress or frustrations.  But I try to not let it be my every day.  My husband and I say to each other when the days or weeks are not looking so rosy to "CHOOSE HAPPY."  Some days it's a little bit harder to find, but it is there.  Do what you can to find your happy!

Here's the post:  StyleBlueprint

Be good. Be strong.