Out of the mouths of babes…

We recently held a LiveSTRONG Day at our boys’ elementary school.  We sent home flyers explaining the ride and the cause.  We explained if they sent in their $1 donation they would receive a wristband.  The kids were encouraged to WEAR YELLOW on that Friday to school.   We set up a table with stickers and information on LAF. Yada Yada Yada.  This fundraising stuff has turned me into somewhat of a robot going through the motions all for our great cause.  Since our trip to Ausin last year, we have been working on the concept and dedicating our time to making this ride a reality.  While I don’t spend time on the bike training, I’m here to explain to our young children why daddy is on his bike and not at home.  They don’t really even ask about it anymore…they know what he is doing.  But I didn’t realize how much they truly do understand.  On that LiveSTRONG Day, Reed (our First Grader) stood in front of his class (wearing his LiveSTRONG shirt with pride) and gave a small speech.  He simply asked, “Who in here has heard of Cancer?  Well if my dad gets it, the doctors will have to know what to do to help him.  That’s why he rides his bike to raise money.  Who’s with us?”

It brought me to tears when his teacher told me this.  I have been so focused on the logistics, the details, the data entry that I had lost sight of the real reason we began our journey.  We have lost many family members and friends to cancer.  However, when we lost my father-in-law our world changed.  My husband had lost his parent, his colleague, his best friend.  I had lost a man that truly took me in as his own daughter and our children had lost their grandfather.  Ron is a wonderful, doting father because of the father he had.    Mike Jerina is a proud and doting father beyond cancer.  I feel it, see it and hear it through my husband and children.  He is with us in spirit and guiding our way.  That is the silver lining that has come out of our dark cloud of cancer.

I am so proud of Ron for dedicating his time and his passion to this ride.  I am proud to be a part of this journey/adventure we are about to participate in.  I am so grateful to have met all the riders and volunteers that jumped at the chance to join this fight.  As our First Grader said, “…the doctors will have to know what to do to help him.”  A six year old makes it sound simple and it can be.  With fundraising dollars for research, I’m confident they will figure out how to help.   That’s why we all are doing what we do.

(P.S.  The response from the school was overwhelming.  I was at school that day in a sea of YELLOW shirts.  Most all of the kids who didn’t have on wristbands first thing in the morning had them by noon.  I found out that Ridge’s Kindergarten Aide is a 10 year breast cancer survivor and our efforts brought her to tears.  Needless to say, I am very proud of what we are doing in our community)

Pictured here: Ron’s Mom, Dee, with our boys: RJ, Reed and Ridge.  God bless her, she is flying out with all three boys to join us in Austin on Thursday.