Over a year ago, when we first heard of St. Baldrick’s, I decided that when I shaved, it had to be in honor of someone. I needed to make this personal for me. I can remember wracking my brain trying to think of a child that I knew whose life had been touched by cancer. We had no one in our immediate or extended family.
Over the course of this past year, I continued to postpone planning for my shave as I searched for a child to honor.
There was one little girl at my sister’s church and I asked my sister to approach the family with my request. That didn’t work out for it wasn’t the right time for them to subject their daughter to scrutiny such as I was looking for.
I then asked my sister in law who is a pediatric nurse if she knew of anyone I could approach. She did some research and came up empty handed.
A friend of my daughter is in nursing school, and again the request went out but returned with the same response.
All the while, time was passing and my shaving was getting postponed until one day it hit me like a ton of bricks. Here I was getting depressed because I couldn’t find a child who had cancer. How crazy was that? It took me months to realize that THIS WAS A GOOD THING, not a problem.
Imagine ------ no one in my circle of influence knows of a child who has cancer.
According to the statistics, every 3 ½ minutes a child is diagnosed, so knowing no one is pretty remarkable.
After taking a moment to consider how grateful that made me, and how sorry I was for all the families that are not as blessed as I, planning began for my big shave. I have found a way to make the shave personal for me and I will be shaving in honor of some very special people. Over the course of the next few days, I will be profiling them here on my blog and I hope that you will be as touched as I with their stories.
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