Instead of running RSS sponsorships this month, I’m raising money in support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Click here to learn more and donate.
I can’t believe it’s only been a year since the last time September rolled around, but that’s what time does when you’re a parent. It speeds up, leaving you behind if you aren’t careful.
It’s worse when you have a child with a catastrophic disease. When I scroll back through photos of our oldest son, so many of them are tinted by his experience.
He wasn’t diagnosed until he was six months old, but I search his newborn photos for signs of the earliest indications that something was wrong. Most of the photos of him under the age of three are taken in a hospital or show his old feeding tube. His scars were visible until his hair grew in.
I love this photo of my wife Merri, Josiah and our friend Levi. I wish it was taken in our living room or in a park, but that’s not the hand we were dealt.
Here’s the thing. I can look at my photo library and feel angry and sad, but a lot of parents we have known don’t get to have almost eight years of photos of their children.
As good as St. Jude is, cancer still claims young lives every day. It’s is a stain on our humanity, but it’s one we can rid ourselves of.
No child should die in the dawn of life. Every family should have decades of intact family photos. Donate now.