My Grams is very passionate about St. Jude Children's Hospital and she gets together with the St. Jude's rep for the Asheville, North Carolina area every so often. Well just a few weeks ago the woman from St. Jude's stopped at my Grams house for some tea and my Grams happened to show her the picture of Olivia after her Trike-a-Thon and, Grams shared Olivia success story with the nice woman. Well yesterday Olivia received a package from Dana at St. Jude Children's Hospital, it included a nice handwritten thank you card, a t-shirt and a 2012 calendar. The girls and I spent time going through the calendar, they asked a lot of questions and I answered the best I could, keep in mind I had a lump in my throat the entire time thinking about the fear those parents featured in the calendar must feel every single day watching their children battle such a dreadful disease. We talked about Cancer, I showed them the photos of the Doctors and Nurses, and we got to one month of the Calendar (March) and there was a little boy playing with Mr. Potato Head and there was a quote from his Mom.
"They say life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning how to dance in the rain. St. Jude gave us dance lessons." Joshua's Mother - Joshua is 5 and has Rhabdoid Tumor (soft tissue tumor).
Talk about a great outlook on life! I can imagine having a child with Cancer changes your perspective in many ways, but having a positive outlook has to be one of the constants you see in these stories, gives me the chills just thinking about it. I would hope if faced with a challenge like a sick child that I too would have a positive outlook and would be strong enough to power through, but I can imagine there would be days where I would struggle to get out of bed, days where I would just want to pull the covers over my head and cry because my beauty isn't able to do the things other little boys and girls their age are doing, but these Mom's are hero's, the brave face they put on for their children is something to admire.
Side Note: St. Jude will celebrate 50 years of fighting childhood cancer in 2012, miracle workers who hopefully in another 50 years won't have nearly as many patients, because the Doctors will have cured this dreadful disease.
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