I know a lot of four-letter words. My wife thinks I know too many. There are some I tend to be very liberal with depending on the circumstance, and there are a few I don’t use nearly enough. Hope is one of those four-letter words that falls somewhere in the middle.
For me, the word gets thrown out there like a catch-all. I hope my wife knows just how much I love her. As I wrote in my last post, I hope that my kids will grow up to make good decisions when I’m not able to make those decisions for them. I also hope to one day not have to work a 9 to 5 job and instead am able to provide for my family as a writer. But I fall into the same trap that many well-intentioned people do when it comes to hope. I simply just hope.
Life for me is a constant battle of remembering that Traci will never know just how much I love her if I don’t make time to say the words, or more importantly, show her. My kids run the risk of becoming someone they shouldn’t if I’m not part of the steady diet of what influences them. The world will never be able to judge me as a writer if I don’t make a conscious effort to write every day and submit something to it to be judged by. Without being proactive, hope is no more powerful than any other word in the English language. It becomes just another four-letter word that gets thrown around at a time of convenience. At some point we all have to realize that for hope to work, we have to do something. We can’t stand sitting.
A year ago our family lost a good friend to pancreatic cancer. Even though Mark had been diagnosed fifteen months prior, it didn’t make the reality of his death any less devastating to my wife and her family. Upon his diagnosis, Mark’s doctors initially gave him a few months to live; they said he’d be dead by summer’s end. The Weitzenhoffer family hoped the doctors were wrong, but they continued to live their lives by becoming advocates for finding a cure rather than waiting for a miracle to happen. The Weitzenhoffers had hope that Mark would get just a little more time to spend with his family and friends, perhaps not to say goodbye, but to say thank you to those that let him share in their lives. And Mark hoped, even at a time when most people would feel like hope itself had abandoned them, that one day a cure would be found and no other family would have to endure what his was.
The American Cancer Society estimates that nearly 37,000 people in the United States will fall prey in 2010 to a disease that seems to get little air time when talking about the ruthlessness of cancer. Both breast and prostate cancer awareness have increased tremendously in the last five years and even receive invaluable support from major sporting leagues and associations. But pancreatic cancer has yet to see support on that kind of level - still it’s the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths, and according to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network has the highest mortality rate of all the cancers. This is also where I tell you that pancreatic cancer research receives only 2% of federally funded cancer research money.
Pancreatic cancer is a different monster altogether; it knows no gender boundaries. It doesn’t care that in 1989 you played the part of a bad ass bouncer at the meanest bar on the outskirts of town in Road House, or that you taught eighth grade science for thirty years at the middle school up the street, or that you worked for the FAA like Mark had. Pancreatic cancer is an equal opportunity grim reaper; it’s only content as long as it’s taking someone’s life. This monster has to be stopped.
To aid in the local fundraising cause, The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research will be sponsoring the 2nd Annual Margaret Wilson Memorial Walk for Pancreatic Cancer Research on Saturday, October 23rd at The Katy Trail at Reverchon Park in Dallas, Texas. For more information on how you can sign up and participate in this event, please visit the Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk website.
If you’d like to help make hope more than just another four-letter word and support Her Living Room Hero in the fight against pancreatic cancer by making a donation, you can do so by visiting Weitzenhoffer's Walkers for Hope and selecting my name. Please don’t prevent yourself from donating because you think something as small as a couple of dollars won’t help. It will. Every penny counts and lets your voice be heard. Those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are dying for your voice to be heard.
- Brad
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