Lighting the Night: For My Mother, Brother and Someone You Love

I plan to participate in the Light The Night walk this weekend.

This is an annual event my family and several friends never miss, for a variety of reasons. First, it’s impossible not to get behind an organization like The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Second, the work and research these people have done are making a difference.

After watching our grandmother and then her daughter (our mother) die of cancer in 2002, the Murphy family was done with that disease for a while. Of course, life seldom works that way. Less than six months after my mother’s funeral, my sister’s husband Scott (who is not my brother-in-law; he’s my brother) was diagnosed with leukemia. Thankfully, it was caught quickly and what was at that time a trial medication effectively put the smack down on the disease. It made a lot of sense for us to show our gratitude for the cause, and all this work, to do some small part to share the love, spread the word and light the night. And so we do.

(I’ve written at length, recently, about my personal campaign to raise funds for cancer-related organizations: the most recent update is HERE.)

If you want to learn more about the event, or how to get involved, I encourage you to check it out. Let me add that this is not a solicitation, and I’m not trolling for donations. Rather, it’s intended as an awareness campaign. Let’s face it: there is not an overabundance of feel-good stories in our society right now, and it’s easier than ever to let apathy or cynicism sink their claws into your soul. To consider that there are scores of people (professionals and volunteers) dedicated to eradicating a disease that, unchecked, would continue to rob families of loved ones, and all of us of someone (or something) we love, is inspirational. I am humbled by those efforts and celebrate that they have, in part, helped save the life of a person I could not fathom being without.

Our team page is HERE.

Hope to see some of you out there tomorrow night!