Putting a Face with the Cause

I guess one of the things that helped me become so passionate about St. Jude was following the life of a little boy named Joseph. His parent's blogged and continue to blog about his life and unfortunate death to childhood cancer. His story inspired me immeasurably. Once you can place a face with a cause it makes it so much more real. In many ways Joseph's story is similar to Ben's that is in the video below.

There are two things that strike me from this video. One is the tremendous effort by St. Jude and how important they are in this fight against cancer. The other thing that strikes me is still how far we have to go to cure childhood cancer.

This video also inspires and encourages me in knowing that my efforts are so much more than trying to run some stupid race for some stupid medal that I will inevitably lose before I get home. With my efforts and the efforts of my sponsors, very real strides are being made to make this world a better place for so many children. So every day I run, I lace up my shoes and think of these children. I hope that more parents will be able to hold on to their children, more smiles like Ben's will not fade, and more beautiful little lives are not cut short. I believe when I start running distances up to 20 miles in training, it is the thought of who I am running for that tells me not to quit.

In the last half century the most common form of childhood cancer has gone from a survival rate of 4% to 94%. Can you imagine what another 50 years can bring? With the effort of so many who give to St. Jude, there are no limits to what might be achieved.

Hopefully more and more stories like Ben can actually have happy endings.

I am running for such dreams.