For our Luke. For all the children and families out there still still facing the horror of a cancer diagnosis in one of their children. One day at a time.
8 years ago our world changed forever. 8 years ago, Luke had an episode that we later discovered was a seizure and he was taken by ambulance from the pediatrician's office to the emergency room for testing. We didn’t know it at the time but a merciless glioblastoma multiforme (gbm) tumor was starting to grow in his brain. 8 years ago, this brutal journey began.
Luke was brave. Luke was resilient. He moved forward and continued to do each day the best he could…with smiles, with laughs, with a grit underneath the surface that propelled Sheila and I to keep moving forward with him. He taught us how to live in the moment, to smile, to laugh (and sometimes cry), to love…all in the face of darkness. The kindness that our family saw from other people changed our life during that time. Luke's example of how to take advantage of times when you feel good and how to smile and play if you possibly can is something we still think of daily.
After all these years, Luke is never far from my mind. No matter what happens in my life, part of my daily mission is to live like Luke and to do whatever I can to make the world a better place as often as I can. No matter what happens, I am anchored in the mission to help organizations like St. Baldrick's help to pave the way for research and cures that will allow some other Dad to have his firstborn son by his side, to keep their child in their family and at the dinner table for a long, healthy, happy lifetime.
So that’s why I’m shaving my head. To support those children. To support pediatric cancer research. To support Luke’s Legacy.