Thursday, November 15, 2012

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2006. That Christmas we took Mattie to Florida and celebrated the holidays with my parents. Mattie loved Florida, the water, draw bridges, and building on the beach. I am so happy we had these times together. This afternoon, Beth Parker, a Fox 5 News reporter interviewed me and asked to see pictures of the three of us together. The irony is around our home we have a ton of Mattie pictures, but not many on display of the three of us. So tonight I was inspired to find a photo to post on the blog that illustrated what my family used to look like. 


Quote of the day: Love is something that if you give it away, give it away, you end up having more. ~ Malvina Reynolds


About three nights ago I had a dream. In my dream, I was surrounded by candy, not UNLIKE in my real life. However, in the dream I decided to send an email to Beth Parker, who is a Fox 5 newscaster. Beth has covered Mattie Miracle events twice already and I like the way Beth reports a human interest story. That may sound easy to do, but it truly isn't. She does it with sensitivity and skill. In any case, in my dream, I wrote to Beth to tell her about our candy drive. I wanted her to know what we were up to, with the hopes that she would think this was a news worthy story. When I woke up from the dream, I was confused because I wasn't sure if I had really sent the email to Beth or whether I just dreamt about it. Nonetheless, I decided to take a chance and try to make my dream a reality. So two days ago I emailed Beth.

This morning after my zumba class, I received a voice mail from Beth. She wanted to come to our home today and "talk candy." Naturally I was VERY excited, but after an hour of exercising, I did not look like I would be ready to go on TV. I quickly put that notion aside and did the interview anyway. Amazing how cancer has changed my life and priorities. When I got home from zumba, I quickly reorganized the candy, and cleaned up boxes and bags which were EVERYWHERE.

I spent 90 minutes with Beth and her wonderful cameraman, Steve. I loved Steve's creativity and I truly think the candy inspired both of them. Beth and Steve greeted me today with a bag of candy that they contributed to the drive, and it is their candy that you can see me sorting in the news piece. They thought of everything! As I told Beth, talking about Mattie helps to keep his memory alive and this is VERY therapeutic. After all, if you could see how much candy we sorted, you would either think something is profoundly wrong with us or that it is a labor of love. Which it is!
 
It was a very exciting day for us and tomorrow Peter and I head off to the Hospital for Sick Children in DC to give an hour long presentation about the impact of a childhood cancer diagnosis on a child and a family. Our audience is health care providers. We have been working on this presentation for weeks and hopefully tomorrow it will sound coherent.

I invite you all to visit the Fox 5 link below to read Beth's story and see the news footage. I also welcome and encourage you to leave a comment below the video on the Fox 5 page. I think it is important for Beth and Fox 5 to hear your feedback!
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/20112110/cancer-patient-mattie-remembered-with-candy-for-others

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken on November 13, 2007, Peter's  birthday! Mattie always liked to bake a cake to celebrate such an occasion. This photo captured happier times.





Quote of the day: Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your modus operandi and change your world. ~ Annie Lennox


Today was the last candy collection day. I expected perhaps a bag or two, but to my surprise there was more delivered and a ton to carry and sort. When we finally get the total sorted, I will take a picture with the bags so you can see the significance of this candy drive. It is almost hard to believe how much candy we are talking about!

Mattie's school has a brownie troop. One of the candy pick ups today was the contributions from this troop. Which was significant! The creativity of the kids however was very touching. On one of their candy collection boxes you can see a picture of Mattie with Patches. In addition, the children covered all the lollipops with white tissue and then they drew a face on each tissue. So the covered lollipops look like ghosts. You can see them in the box.

 

On the majority of candy bags the children gave us are beautifully drawn hand colored pictures. Don't you just love this pumpkin!?

Many of the candy bags say, "for Mattie." The children in this brownie troop never met or knew Mattie. Yet their troop leaders read the blog and know fellow parents at Mattie's school who did know Mattie. When the children wrote "for Mattie" on their bags, what they meant was this candy was given in honor of Mattie. This troop's kindness meant a lot to me because the pictures illustrate that Mattie's story has been shared and his memory remains alive in this group of children.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Tuesday, November 13, 2012 -- Mattie died 166 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2008. Peter was holding a model magic cake that Mattie designed for him. It was a cake in honor of Peter's birthday. Today is Peter's birthday and four years ago we celebrated Peter's day in Mattie's hospital room. Mattie told all the Hospital staff that it was his father's birthday, and literally Mattie got everyone involved. He had Linda (his Child Life Specialist) order cupcakes and Jenny and Jessie (Mattie's Art Therapists) helped him with gifts. In fact, Peter was so touched by this model magic cake that he worked very hard to preserve it (even the candles!). This cake still sits on Peter's dresser in our bedroom.


Quote of the day: A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca 

Birthdays are funny things for Peter and I. Certainly as one gets older the thought of celebrating a birthday isn't as much fun as when we were kids. But our chronological age is not what stops us from celebrating. The loss of Mattie is what causes us to pause. Recently someone told me a story of a woman I have gotten to know in passing. This woman has experienced her own set of losses. Not the loss of a child to cancer, but a loss nonetheless. Life did not turn out the way she had planned or hoped. My friend was telling me that in so many ways this woman's life is stuck. Though the nature of our issues are different, I get this stuck feeling all too well, and I suspect unless you have experienced feeling stuck from a traumatic loss, you may find yourself confused by what I am saying and instead be asking yourself.... why can't you just get unstuck?!

Yesterday I told Peter that I made reservations tonight for us to go out to dinner. Though I know he doesn't feel like celebrating, I told him he is worth it and if that didn't convince him, then I explained that I was doing this for Mattie. After the hoopla Mattie had planned for Peter's birthday at the Hospital in 2008, I figured Mattie would be very disappointed in me if we did nothing today. So needless to say, Peter agreed to go out to dinner.


I wish I could say that candy collections are over, but they are NOT! Here is today's batch that I picked up and needs to be sorted. I am delivering all the candy to the Hospital on Monday and it is my hope that by that time, it will all be sorted and weighed. At the moment I am losing space in our home, and frankly I feel like I am living in a candy store. I have a good sense of what working in a chocolate factory must smell like.

 

Here is a photo I took this afternoon. Are you getting the picture?! Candy everywhere!!! Patches is overseeing the process and she just doesn't know what to make out of all these Ziploc bags. The running total now is 82 (2.5gallon) Ziploc bags!!! But this doesn't include today's significant candy pick up! My friend Tina told me that our snack cart has inspired one local Girl Scout troop. The troop is thinking of starting their own cart at a neighboring hospital, since they enjoyed contributing to our candy drive. A lovely piece of news to receive!

 

 

 

Monday, November 12, 2012

Monday, November 12, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2007, at the Veterans Day parade in Washington, DC. Mattie appreciated the music and seeing different branches of the military dressed in their uniforms.




Quote of the day: We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude. ~ Cynthia Ozick


In honor of Veterans Day, Ozick's quote, encourages us to pause and reflect on the meaning of this day. To all our patriots who have served, who are still serving, or died in military service, we thank them for their courage, sacrifice, and the dedication to preserving freedom and justice in our Country and the world.

It was a day of meetings today. My first meeting pertained to our May fundraiser, our annual Foundation Walk. Later in the day, I met with the chair of the counseling department at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Last week I gave a lecture on the trauma of childhood cancer at this Institution and now the faculty of the program have asked me to consider serving on the program's advisory board. Prior to Mattie getting cancer, I lived and breathed teaching and the education of counselors. Now my life looks a lot different. Yet as I was talking with the chair, I could see that my numerous experiences on the National level enable me to have insights that an advisory committee desires. It was nice to hear this, and of course, being the chair of the DC Licensure Board enables me to share our current laws and regulations with the School. While taking a tour of the campus, one of the faculty members recognized me. He reminded me that we served on a committee together for our national counseling association. It is a small world and I was amazed with how much this individual remembered about our committee work and time with each other. For me it was as if it happened a lifetime ago, or when I was a different person. I appreciate this direct opportunity to remain connected to the field of counselor education and in the process, I feel this will enable me to find avenues to educate mental health students on the impact and needs of children and families battling childhood cancer.

Peter and I are still sorting candy, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Wednesday is our LAST collection day. So by next week, I will be able to visit the Hospital and unload all these goodies. It is NO doubt the Foundation is supplying a year's worth of candy for Georgetown University Hospital!



Sunday, November 11, 2012                                                 Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2003. We took Mattie to Leesburg Animal Farm one weekend and as you can see Mattie came face to face with a sheep. Mattie loved animals and his left hand was desperately trying to reach up to grab a hold of that wonderful wool!

 

 

Quote of the day: There are always flowers for those who want to see them. ~ Henri Matisse

 

 

Tonight's quote seems SO applicable considering the exhibit I saw today. I had the opportunity to go to the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC and out to brunch with Mattie's kindergarten teacher. Leslie and I get together on a periodic basis, and to our wonderful surprise the Dupont Circle Farmers Market was open as well today. We ventured through aisles and aisles of tents stocked with amazing produce from LOCAL farms. I have heard about this Farmers Market for years, but have never gone. I can see why it draws people from all over our area! It is that spectacular.

 

I love the Phillips Collection because unlike the Smithsonian, it is a very intimate and doable art experience. We went to see the special exhibit by Per Kirkeby, who is a Danish artist and still alive today. I have never seen Kirkeby's works, but now that I have, I must admit they are not my favorites. To me his work invokes chaos, depression, and just leaves you uninspired and flat. Leslie and I even saw a brief film in which the artist shared with his audience his thoughts and feelings while creating a large canvas before our eyes. A canvas so tall he needed a ladder and scalfolding. His thought process was just as complex as his art, which actually was no surprise and only helped to further explain what we were seeing. He explained that when he creates a painting he has no vision in mind as to what he will produce, the picture just simply evolves over time. As we watched through lapse photograpy the creation of his huge painting, it was evident that he is a harsh critic of himself and describes some of the colors his used as vile. Needless to say watching his video felt like a psychology case study rather than watching the beauty of a creator in motion.

 

Yet for Leslie and me, we tried to find the metaphorical flowers in this sea of color, shapes, and scribbles. It was almost fun in a way to try to interpret the chaos before us. It took great imagination from my perspective. As I told Leslie, sometimes you just don't want to work that hard to understand what you are seeing before you.



  

 

This painting is entitled, Inverno. This Phillips Collection exhibit is the most comprehensive survey in the United States to date of works by Scandinavia’s most highly acclaimed living artist, Per Kirkeby. Kirkeby is equally trained as a geologist and an artist, and is considered a painter of eminent sensuality, creating richly layered canvases filled with prodigious detail and animated by an unequaled material quality of color. He is not only a leading painter, sculptor, and printmaker, but also a prolific writer, poet, and filmmaker.

 

Believe it or not this painting is Untitled! Nonetheless, the subject matter in it is very clear, unlike so many of his other pieces. You can distinctly see three horses here. The exhibition features 26 expressive paintings and 11 striking bronze sculptures. Kirkeby’s paintings—some over six feet tall—are structured like geological strata, constantly in flux, moving and changing, continuously and passionately maintaining a dialogue between art and science. For Kirkeby, art, like science, is engaged in an ongoing, self-correcting process. His works incorporate all aspects of natural history, reflecting the artist’s considerable curiosity about the infinite variety of life.

 

After touring the Kirkeby exhibit, we then viewed some of the museum's permanent collection. This is Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party. One of my favorite paintings! This painting remains the best known and most popular work of art at The Phillips Collection, just as Duncan Phillips imagined it would be when he bought it in 1923. The painting captures an idyllic atmosphere as Renoir's friends share food, wine, and conversation on a balcony overlooking the Seine at the Maison Fournaise restaurant in Chatou. Parisians flocked to the Maison Fournaise to rent rowing skiffs, eat a good meal, or stay the night. The painting also reflects the changing character of French society in the mid- to late 19th century. The restaurant welcomed customers of many classes, including businessmen, society women, artists, actresses, writers, critics, seamstresses, and shop girls. This diverse group embodied a new, modern Parisian society. Renoir seems to have composed this complicated scene without advance studies or underdrawing. He spent months making numerous changes to the canvas, painting the individual figures when his models were available, and adding the striped awning along the top edge. Nonetheless, Renoir retained the freshness of his vision, even as he revised, rearranged, and crafted an exquisite work of art.

We had a lovely brunch and typical of teachers, when we get together, we have a plethora of things to talk about. Which was very nice and engaging. Because believe it or not I can talk about other things than cancer. Later in the day when I got back home, Peter and I went for a walk around the Potomac River. The weather felt like spring and everyone and his cousin was out walking. We were surrounded by SUN SEEKERS today and it was hard to believe it is November!

 

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2006. Mattie was four and a half years old. I love this picture! We took Mattie to Leesburg Animal Park and he loved the hands on petting zoo. Something about this photo gets me laughing, it wasn't that Mattie was chasing the rooster, he really just wanted to get a closer look, but the rooster had other plans. As the rooster began running, so did Mattie.


Quote of the day: Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer


My dad sent me this quote yesterday. It is very applicable given the intense action it takes to collect all this post-Halloween candy around town and then sort it. The running total right now is 67 (2.5gallon) bags of candy! That may sound like a lot, but when you see it in person you get the full magnitude of this collection. I included a picture of what our dining room looks like now. Our table is filled, the floor is filled, and today it is migrating onto our side board. This is NOT the end of sorting either. More candy continues to come in.

Peter and I have been asked to give an hour long presentation this coming Friday at a palliative care conference hosted by the Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. We have been working on this presentation in stages, especially since the coordinator of the conference wants our presentation to be told in stories. I have enough stories to fill up a four hour presentation, so trying to narrow down our content is key. Our audience will be health care and psychosocial staff providers. Between candy sorting, we sat down and discussed the presentation in more detail and we are busy working on a PowerPoint presentation filled with pictures illustrating the stories we plan on telling. All of this requires a lot of work, time, and energy. Emotional energy! Certainly telling Mattie's story and sharing our perspective is important, but we want the stories to have a clinical meaning. We want staff members to leave having greater insights into how their care impacts a child and his/her family and along the way share feedback about what did and didn't work for our family. With each presentation we give, I always find it interesting to hear the questions posed to us along with the feedback we receive. Such opportunities to talk honestly about Mattie and our experiences rarely occur in our everyday lives. Therefore, these presentations are always therapeutic for Peter and I. They keep Mattie's memory alive but they also allow us to freely be what we are...... bereaved parents.
 

Friday, November 9, 2012

Friday, November 9, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2006. Mattie loved to paint these three dimensional wooden models. Mattie would build the model, glue it together, and when it dried, would paint it. I have several of Mattie's models in our home today. Mattie enjoyed painting in our living room and the beauty of Mattie was he took pride in his work and therefore paint did not land up all over the place. In so many ways Mattie and I were a lot alike. We liked to be creative, but organization and order were very important to us.




Quote of the day: Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. ~ Henry Van Dyke


My friend Charlie sent me this quote today, and as soon as I read it, it spoke to me immediately. The beauty of this quote is we all wait, fear, grieve, rejoice, and love. At some point in our lives we can say that time stood still, moved too quickly, or even lasts an eternity. These are all aspects of time that we can relate to, and yet the death of a child changes time altogether for parents. Our typical mile markers that help orient us to time and place are gone, and instead, grief becomes a constant. Almost like the ticking of a clock. It is ingrained in our heart, mind, and body. Just when one takes a pause from grief, the reality sets in, and the guilt from this mental pause can set you back ten steps. With grief, time can move slow, fast, and last an eternity all at one time. In so many ways it feels like Mattie just died and yet I know it was three years ago.

I had a marathon licensure board meeting today, so this evening I am mentally wiped out. After the five hour meeting, I then hopped into the car and commuted around Alexandria collecting candy for the Mattie Miracle candy drive. This evening I emailed Linda (Mattie's child life specialist) at the Hospital to give her a heads up that our candy supply this year is about three times more than what is was last year. It has been an amazing and yet overwhelming response by our supporters!

When I got home this evening, my front seat, back seat, and trunk were filled with candy. Keep in mind that I have been collection candy ALL week!

So far this is what our sorting has produced. However, I brought home the equivalent of what you are seeing on the floor tonight. Peter and I have our work cut out for us and by the end of the weekend, candy will literally be everywhere. I can assure you that when you have this significant amount of candy in one location the smell is almost sickening. It is hard to describe if you haven't experienced it. Some of you will just have to take my word for it.

 

The majority of candy has been collected, yet I know a few more groups who are still in the process of getting the candy to me. It is my hope that next week, I can get all the candy sorted and then delivered to the Hospital. Stay tuned for a total weight collected. Unlike last year, this year's collection is TOO significant to count item by item. Instead, we will be reporting the collection in pounds.

 

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2007. Mattie and I were standing on the bridge leading to Roosevelt Island. A typical weekend activity for us. On the Island, Mattie always found an item that intrigued him and most likely it came home with us. Such items could be a leaf (like the one I am holding), a stone, or even a stick. In fact, we had so many collected sticks that we made an artistic stick display in the plaza of our complex for all to see.


Quote of the day: Your thoughts, words and deeds are painting the world around you. ~ Jewel Diamond Taylor

The deeds of many of our supporters are speaking volumes! They are painting the world around us! We have been inundated with candy, which is a wonderful problem to have. I picked up more candy today and the loads are so significant that I can't collect them with my car. I have to use Peter's explorer.

Candy is all around us at home and the fragrance of chocolate hits you as soon as you walk into our front door. It is pervasive. As you can see our dining room table is covered with candy.

The candy continues to the floors as well. Literally it is everywhere. I haven't tabulated how much we have collected so far but it is significant. I am signing off for the day, but I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all our candy contributors. This candy will be making SO many families very happy!

 

 

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Tonight's photo was taken in November of 2007. Mattie and I went to visit Peter at his office and Mattie helped himself to Peter's markers. It wasn't unusual, regardless of the picture Mattie drew, that the sun was incorporated into his work. In so many ways, Mattie was a born artist. He simply knew that whatever he created needed to be signed by him. Next to his car drawing was his classic signature. All capital letters, except for the "I." The "i" was always in lower case with a cute dot on top.

 

Quote of the day: Love is the first ingredient in the relief of suffering. ~ Padre Pio


I have spent weeks getting ready for tonight's presentation that I gave at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. I was asked to introduce my audience to Mattie, the Foundation, and specifically the research of trauma and childhood cancer. I have done many presentations as Mattie Miracle's president, but my audience tonight was different! It was comprised of master's students in the field of counseling. In essence this was the population I used to teach prior to Mattie developing cancer. I spoke for two and a half hours and during that time: 1) I introduced the students to Mattie, 2) showed them the four minute video attached to this blog, 3) shared information about the Foundation, 4) highlighted many childhood cancer facts and the psychosocial impact of cancer, 5) covered the significant research on Medical Traumatic Stress, 6) brought the research alive through real life examples from Mattie's treatment, 7) highlighted a trauma model and discussed intervention strategies, and 8) had the students work on a case study to operationalize the model and interventions covered.


After the class was over, I snapped a picture of some of the students who were willing to have their picture taken. On the far left is Dr. Jean LaFauci Schutt. Jean and I both graduated from the George Washington University, and I was honored that she invited me to her class. Jean has been involved in our Foundation Walks, is a Mattie Miracle Supporter, and a blog reader. In fact tonight she told me that she was in Sea Isle City, NJ on August 5, 2009, when Mattie's prognosis became terminal. It was eerie for both of us, because as my faithful readers know I was just in Sea Isle City last weekend for a wedding. The connections we share always intrigue me.

 

I felt it was important to show the students the video of Mattie, because it makes the topic more tangible and real. It is vital that they understand that what we were talking about isn't some theoretic issue. Instead, it is an issue that impacts the lives and futures of children and their families. As I was creating this 54 slide PowerPoint presentation, I learned a great deal. Because what the slide show provides is a solid explanation for why Mattie and I developed medical traumatic stress. Medical traumatic stress is rarely talked about and you should keep in mind that NO professional in the hospital diagnosed this issue in Mattie. I diagnosed it myself after researching the symptoms I was seeing in Mattie on the Internet! I neither had the time or the mental strength to figure this out during Mattie's battle, yet his care team wasn't helping me. So I had to take matters into my own hands. Once I figured out that the symptoms had a clinical explanation and a NAME, I then educated Mattie's care professionals and demanded the attention of a child psychiatrist. Medical traumatic stress is defined as "a set of psychological and physiological responses of children and their families to pain, injury, medical procedures, and invasive or frightening treatment experiences.” As I explained to the students tonight, Medical Traumatic Stress doesn't only occur during diagnosis, it can occur throughout treatment and there after! For both the child and the caregivers.

 

The students asked very meaningful questions tonight and I was impressed in their interest. After all this is not a happy topic and it can be painful to hear and sit through. When the presentation was over, I was packing up my things and a student asked me whether she could ask one last question. In front of her colleagues, she asked me what it is like to see the video of Mattie and how do I care for myself after giving such a presentation. I frankly wasn't expecting this question, because in all my other presentations, no one was worried about me. In many ways it is a very profound question. The class also wanted to know if Peter and I have grieved the same way. So there was a lot to touch upon. Self care is important, but as I told the class, my self care is constantly evolving and changing. Since I need different things during each stage of our grief process. At the core however, I did tell them about the blog, and I do believe the blog is one of my main outlets for self care. Some may not view this as an ideal vehicle of support since I do not get feedback or input from my readers, but sometimes getting this commentary isn't necessary.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Tuesday, November 6, 2012 -- Mattie died 165 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2008. Mattie was in the Child Life playroom and got the opportunity to paint a pumpkin. I can tell by looking at this picture, that it was an admissions to the hospital day. How do I know? Because Mattie was wearing clothes. Typically once Mattie was admitted to the hospital, he preferred wearing pajamas. During the day and at night. He wasn't interested in wearing clothes at all! I also notice  in this photo that Mattie was using his left hand, which also tells me that this picture was taken after his first surgery of his right arm. Mattie was right handed but after his surgery Mattie became very talented with his other appendages. 


Quote of the day: Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer


I started the day going to zumba. At class, I met up with my friend Heidi. Heidi is one of my friends helping me collect candy for our Mattie Miracle Post-Halloween Candy Drive. Heidi alone must have collected close to 80 pounds of candy for me!!! After loading up my car with Heidi's candy (which she collected from friends and her neighborhood), I then ventured to Ann's house. Ann's house is our main drop off center for Mattie Miracle Candy. Ann has been preparing me for what I was going to see, by emailing me photos each day. But the actual sight of this was overwhelming. One of the bags at Ann's house weighed literally 45 pounds!

When I got home this afternoon, I spent time carrying each of the bags of candy into our home and then began sorting. This may not look that challenging, but this sorting that you see here took me over two hours. I will be doing this for several days since more candy continues to come in.

I have piles of candy ALL over our home. Here is just one of the piles. The Foundation is getting candy mailed to us and we are actively collecting candy in Virginia, DC, and Maryland!

The second pile! We are VERY grateful to every individual and community group who contributed to our Candy Drive.

This is the third pile. Not unlike last year, when you store SO much candy in one place, the smell can actually be nauseating. Which is an ODD thing for me to say, since I love chocolate.

On Wednesday, I will be delivering a two hour lecture on the trauma of childhood cancer at the Chicago School for Professional Psychology. I have been working on this presentation for weeks now, and have developed a PowerPoint  with 54 slides. My goal is to introduce students to Mattie, to our Foundation, and to share the current research on the trauma of childhood cancer on the entire family system. Today marks the 165th week Mattie has been gone from our lives. He may be gone, but his life, his spirit, and the message of his battle live on in each activity we plan and host.