walk with us

We watched the sun set last week in Florida, hot pink and bright orange, here and gone. Just like our girl.

We laced up shoes this morning, reframing our own impossibly knotted situations -trifling and entirely first world- in an effort to untangle a bigger problem.

We should be stepping gingerly into each next hard part of parenting, practicing all the little letting gos: sleepovers and school dances that lead to a driver's license and college applications, a predictable procession of small goodbyes. And then larger ones, like her wedding day, her father standing up front, offering her to the future she will never have.

With her diagnosis came the kind of anger that had nowhere to go.
We are grateful for opportunities to channel hard feelings into a current of hope, grateful for an event that reminds us she was once a part of this world.
Our loss is not erased by the joy her three healthy brothers bring, nor eliminated through super generous community support, but it is diluted by the combination of these things.
It is through this kind of exercise, gathering to move in the direction of a cure, that we can beat back despair and permit absence to underscore a beautiful presence.
Her spirit is somehow still doing important work. Her legacy lies, in part, in saving lives in the future.
Until a treatment proves truly effective, we will be tethered to activities that bring awareness and hope. And ever grateful that so many of you walk that way with us.

And speaking of important work, this gal ^^^ is changing the world.
There may be nothing better to do for a bereaved parent than to open wide your heart and walk with us.
We're so grateful Laura continues to lead the way.