You know how you crack open your kid’s bedroom door late at night, and peek in just to check on them, and then breathe a silent sigh of relief when you see them lying there, chest moving up and down with every breath, and know that they’re just fine?Or the joy you feel when you take your kid to the doctor and the doctor tells you that the lump on her neck is just a residual symptom from the bacterial infection she had a few weeks before, and not whatever sinister thing you feared it was?Or the moment your heart stops when you see your kid fall from the jungle gym, and you think the worst, but before you can even process a bad thought, your kid is up and running around again?Or the anxiety you feel when you drop off your kid for the first day of kindergarten, and you wonder if she’ll be okay without you for the entire day, and you say a silent prayer that the strangers in whose care you’ve left her will treat her as well as you do?Or the unbelievable excitement your kid experiences around this time of year when he’s able to run around outside without layers of clothes for the first time in months, and the sun is shining, and the birds are chirping, and the grass looks like it wants to turn green, and you can’t imagine anything more beautiful than that particular scene, in that particular minute?Or the way your kid’s shoulders slump, and she looks down at the ground, and mopes away silently after you yell at her for doing something she shouldn’t?Or the anticipation your kid feels with the end of the school year in sight, and the prospect of a long, hot, lazy summer spread out before him?Or the security you feel on a Friday night, maybe just after midnight, when your oldest child comes home after spending time with friends, and everyone’s back in the house, safe and sound?Or the absolute giddy loudness of your kids when you load up the car some Saturday for a trip to the zoo, or the waterpark, or the amusement park, or some other place where you’ll make memories that your kids will still think about seventy years later?Around the world, a child is diagnosed with cancer every three minutes. That means in the time it takes you to read this, another child will be diagnosed. Listen to Penny Lane by The Beatles, there’s another diagnosis. Three minutes is nothing. It happens 480 times every single day.I don’t know this for sure, but it seems to me that if your kid is diagnosed with cancer, then all of those questions I posed above become much less important. The cancer must become all encompassing.I’m among the lucky parents who have not had to deal firsthand with childhood cancer. But since 1 out of 285 children in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer before they turn 20, it’s likely that someone who attends my children’s elementary school right now will be diagnosed.Sometimes I force myself to read difficult things as a sort of barrier to those things happening. Maybe if I’m informed about the horrible things in the world, and I make myself empathic toward the people who have had to deal with them, and I force myself to feel what they’re going through, I won’t have to go through it myself.I’ve spent more time reading about Donna than any other child. She was just over 4 years old when she died from cancer. Her mom is fellow ChicagoNow blogger, Mary Tyler Mom. My wife—who feels these sort of things even more acutely than me—told me Donna’s story and encouraged me to read Mary Tyler Mom’s series about Donna and her illness. I forced myself to read it, and loved and hated every single moment of it.Read it. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anything on the entire Internet more worth your time.
But after Donna died, Mary Tyler Mom pushed on, and through an organization she founded in Donna’s honor, Donna’s Good Things, she has helped raise $254,000 for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation to be used for childhood cancer research.As part of that effort, she has designated today Donna Day. Many ChicagoNow bloggers will write about Donna and childhood cancer today, and we’re all working toward the same goal: to find a cure that will help parents experience the questions I posed instead of experiencing childhood cancer.My sons and I raised money for St. Baldrick’s before we’d heard of Donna. Through the generosity of our family and friends, we raised close to $2,000 over four years. If you want to donate toward childhood cancer research, you can do so by visiting the Donna’s Good Things event page on the St. Baldrick’s website.
Then maybe someday I can write a blog post about the cure for cancer.And that would be my best post ever.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.
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