Fathers Day, Tradition, Foundation, Business and No we are not Crazy

I want to thank you for all your love, support and positive encouragement. You are all wonderful. Saoirse had a lovely birthday.


Its funny how my daughter is still teaching me about being a person. Saoirse had so much patience with people. (for the most part..) I wish it was 5 years from now so the pain is lower. This is how I feel sometimes. Its been a tough past few weeks. Fathers day is coming up and I am already having feelings about that. Last year on Fathers day Kezia and I took Saoirse to play Put Put (miniature golf to some :) ). Craig and Kristina, as well as Tabitha and Scott were there too. Saoirse was feeling pretty good that day and was having a good time riding on my back on the back pack. I knew she wanted to just get down and run around.. lol.. but she still enjoyed herself. She was very vocal that day.. just talking to everyone :) She loved being with people and people loved being with her. 

I saw this early evening out as the beginning of a yearly tradition to play PutPut on Fathers day. I feel sad because I want her home so we can go play. I have thought about going and keeping the tradition in honor of Saoirse. My body tensed up when I had that thought so I am thinking I am open to it, but just not this year. That made me think of the Fitzgerald Cancer Fund's launch on June 18th. in NYC. This is the day after Fathers day this year. That won. This year fathers day is about Saoirse and Neuroblastoma. Now, I have very little, if any to do with the foundation. Kezia and the board run the show. I want to give a very big hug and shout out to Kezia and all of the board members.


Kezia and the entire board of directors of The Fitzgerald Cancer Fund, Inc (we found a free non profit lawyer service to help file the paperwork for non profit public charity - we have to attend a seminar on non profit start ups which we are really looking forward to attending) have been working tirelessly to organize the foundation and plan our official launch in NYC. I mean hours of nightly board meetings, days and days full of planning and designing and hours and hours of designing media. Planning a launch like this is not as simple as saying "think we will go to new york and launch the foundation" .. there are a lot of details and legal requirements that needed to be fulfilled such as photo releases. We thought at first that maybe we are putting to much into this. But no. We are not. This foundation is a commitment. Kezia and I committed to Saoirse and a lot of other parents that we will do what we can to help. This is a lifetime commitment. Board members are all committed. They are so wonderful.


The purpose of the launch at the Today Show Plaza (which I want to add that we are not invited guests on the show, we are just flooding the plaza) is to officially launch our foundation and bring a heightened and much needed awareness to Neuroblastoma, the deadliest and one of the hardest to treat and cure Child Cancer. 


I have my own project. We still have to eat, pay a mortgage, car payment, heat, etc.. We are starting up a business and so we have a lot going on.. I write all day. We have a manufacturer now that we really like and we are in the final stages of samples before production. We are both pretty busy, and that feels good. Its not easy. I have to have a lot of patience with myself as well as with others. Some days I don't write. I just garden or clean. Sometimes we watch a movie. We have our bad days. Sometimes bad days-in-a-row. Thats ok though, so I am told. Sometimes I have to force myself to get up. So I do because we have to. I have no choice but to get up and work for my self, for my family and for my sanity. I got to talk with other parents who lost their child to Neuroblastoma a few weeks ago. I needed that because I just had to make sure I am not crazy. I am not. They are not. We watched our child die.


With all of our busyness, we still make a point to do stuff non business non foundation related such as art walks, a drive, gardening, a movie, or just a walk around Salem or Neurburyport. The best thing is all of that stuff is free :) 


Deep Breath. This felt good. I needed to just sit and write in this blog. 


** To all dads out there.. you are not crazy. We are not crazy. Take deep breaths often.