At 3 am Grandma Boo ended her fight and has found comfort and shelter from pain in heaven. She was an inspiration in how to live life to your fullest and how to deal with what life gives you without complaining. When I will hear thunder I will rest comfortably knowing it is Grandma Boo square dancing her way around heaven.
After Cutler was out of the hospital in 2010 and the day after Father’s Day, four year old Mason asked me, after celebrating both Mothers Day and Fathers Day, when we would celebrate Brothers Day. And so Brothers’ Day was formed. Given the bitter memories of the day of Cutler’s diagnosis, among the other bad memories of 9/11, we thought this would be the best day to celebrate it annually. The first year we went to Disney World, the next year we went to a butterfly exhibition, sadly I can’t remember what we did last year but I am sure it was fun, and this year we decided to go bowling.
Yes, the celebrations have gone down in size over the years, but the important part of this day is being together and the two boys celebrating their love for each other and that love was on full display while bowling. Despite beating us all in the first game, thanks to the rack system for little ones to bowl, Cutler was very quick to reassure each of us after each roll that “You can get it next time” and Mason was loving helping Cutler line it up before each roll. He even didn’t mind losing. Cutler won the first game pretty handily and then Melanie came in and destroyed us all in the second game. Bowling is clearly not my sport, which will probably bring great shame upon my parents.
While I was out of town visiting the grandmas Melanie discovered this in our back yard shortly after letting Rookie out.
Four years ago today started as a normal day with a plan to visit the doctor for Mason’s four-year old check up and quickly turned into a storm drenched punch to the gut that helped open our eyes to the world of blood cancers. On 9/11/2009 Cutler was diagnosed with AML and immediately checked into the hospital. Four years later we are extremely blessed to have a healthy, active, super funny, and extremely cute four-year old boy blessing us every day with laughter and frustration that any parent of a normal four-year old gets to experience on a daily basis.
While in the hospital I went through a range of emotions and often wondered why this was happening to us. Cutler was out of the hospital six months later and we did our first Light The Night walk to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. While attending that walk I it dawned upon me that we were now a part of another family. A family of those touched and impacted by blood cancers. It was then that I realized this was happening to us so that we could start doing more important things with our free time. Since then our family has dedicated a good amount of time helping raise awareness of the great things that LLS does, raising awareness of the impact of blood cancers, and perhaps most importantly helping raise funds to help LLS drive towards their goal of helping eradicate blood cancers.
The LLS not only helps fund research (were you aware that over 50% of current cancer medicines were discovered via research for blood cancer cures?) but provides education, counseling, and financial aid to thousands of people impacted by blood cancers on a daily basis.
We were very blessed to have Cutler beat the odds and win his battle. Unfortunately there are still too many people who are not as fortunate and so we, Team Cutler, will continue to raise money and awareness until the overall battle is won.
Please consider joining us in our effort by Lighting The Night with us on 10/26 in Frisco. If you can’t make the walk, as many of you I will pester, are out of town then consider making a donation. Any size donation is greatly appreciated, from $1 to $1,000,000. I realize that sounds like I would turn you away if you tried to donate $1,000,001 but if you have much to donate please contact me so I can get something special set up for you like a free tshirt.
In order to join the team or to make a donation to the team, click on the link below. There is a section on the right to donate or scroll to the bottom to the join the team link if you want to join us for the walk or just to create a personal site that you can use to help raise funds.
http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntx/Plano13/TeamCutler
For those local to the area, keep your eyes open for our information on our annual Lemonade Stand to be held on 10/19 where all proceeds go to the Light The Night effort. Also, please share the heck out of this message to your family and friends. It never hurts to ask.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at aaron@teamfricke.com.
I can’t mention my visit with Grandma Boo without talking about MeeMaw. MeeMaw has been in the nursing home for what feels like forever now. My mom refers to her as having 999 lives as she seems to cycle from not eating and not knowing who anyone is and getting very weak to starting to eat and having some good days where she realizes how good my mom has been to her. I was very fortunate to have one of those good days with her on my last visit, the same day as the birthday party for Grandma Boo. MeeMaw was always a great audience for my sarcastic humor while I was growing up and on this particular visit she was laughing at it all over again.
I have been intending on posting this every day for the past couple of weeks, but every time I sit down I struggle to get past writer’s block. I don’t know that I have ever written about it before but my father’s mother, Grandma Fricke or Grandma Boo, beat lymphoma several years ago. A few months ago it was found that the lymphoma had returned and she made the decision to not fight it this time around. About three weeks ago Grandma was found unresponsive in her apartment and after several tests a mass was found on her brain and it is thought to be from the lymphoma. After some time in the hospital she was moved into the same nursing home as my mother’s mother, Grandma Lewis or MeeMaw. Grandma Boo started out recovering well and working with the therapists, but has had a few set backs where she has lost the use of her right hand. I was able to visit over Labor Day weekend and as is usual for Grandma Boo, she fought hard to sit up and interact with me. She has her good days and bad days and tires rather easily. I am glad that I was able to visit her, especially as I was there for her 92nd birthday party.
Please pray not just for Grandma Boo, but for my parents, Aunt Linda, and all of my family during this tough time.
Team Fricke 