An emotional roller coaster of a week.

It has been eight days since I last blogged. I am sorry about that.

Sunday (12/14) was Colleen's 10th birthday. We approached the day with dread wondering how we would deal with it. We talked about it as a family, planning for it. We decided that a cake didn't feel right. Mackenna said that eating Macaroni and Cheese and hot dogs had to be the meal of the day and we all agreed wholeheartedly. For anyone that has been following Colleen's CaringBridge I am sure you are smiling at that decision. Colleen would not have had it any other way. Colleen was not a big desert kid. She didn't like most candy or chocolate but her favorite thing was Reese's Peanut Butter cups. So, we decided that each year, we would make a different recipe with Reese's. This year, Peanut Butter Cookies were selected. All of our visitors have been offered one of Colleen's birthday cookies and it makes them smile (at least on the outside).

On Monday, I joined a new grief group that was recommended by an old colleague of Vince's. It is a small group of women who either have lost their children to cancer or are currently fighting the battle. The woman who hosts it now, lives here in Raleigh and has lost one child to Leukemia and has a second child in remission. I enjoyed meeting the other ladies since they were all different parts of their journey and I felt that I could learn from them all. For example, one woman said that the days leading up to the first holidays (such as Christmas) are far worse than the actual holiday themselves and if you can surround yourself with family and friends to distract yourself, it will turn out to be not as bad as you thought it would be. This Christmas, Vince's Father, Step-Mother, and sister are all coming on Christmas eve. This will be the first time that they will be here to share Christmas morning with us and we are all excited about that.

As for Striving for More, I made what I feel is huge progress this week! I have officially hired a corporate attorney (David McKenzie) and I really like him. He and his paralegal both have their Masters in Divinity and their JD (which JD by the way stands for Juris Doctor and means you are an attorney. I have asked about 10 people what that meant in the last week and nobody knew so I just looked it up.). In fact, Jason, his paralegal, worked counseling people with cancer when he was getting his MDiv. I really feel this is the law firm I am supposed to be with. Everything felt right about it. It is just a good feeling you have when you know it is right. They said that I should be incorporated within a week or two and then I should be able to start raising money because my non profit status will be retroactive to the date of incorporation. It was interesting, during my intake interview, Jason (the paralegal) asked what my profession was. I just gave him a blank stare. He said "Do you me to help you with that?" I said, "I would love help with that.". He said you are a Social Entrepreneur. On the way out of their office he handed me some paperwork and said here is some reading material about your profession. What a great office with terrific men, thanks Jason. Apparently Duke has a Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship.

My next focus is 2 meetings with potential board members (one today) and one after Christmas and to get the website up and running. Here is a question for you. When you think of "Striving for More" What image comes to mind? I have been pouring over images and cannot seem to find one that captures the essence of message. I am looking for a banner image for the website. It can either be a simple image like a butterfly (for example) or a banner image like a sky. I would love to hear from you all if you have suggestions. I go out to these stock photo databases and I don't even know what to search for.

Jill Balogh comes to many of the meetings with me. She is going to be the foundations treasurer. She has held that role for many community nonprofits (swim teams, marching bands, PTAs, etc.). She also retired from IBM after more than 20 years there. I am working on coming up with a title for her in this organization because she is like my right hand woman. I haven't come up with anything yet. I am open to suggestions.

I know those of you who read Colleen's CaringBridge journal read about her visits but probably did not know that back story. When I saw that the psychosocial care was a gap for Colleen and that she was keeping things from me (to protect me), I decided that Colleen needed someone in her life that she could connect to and share with. Someone who had similar spiritual values as I do and someone who had a quiet presence. I invited two people over to spend time with her. My friend Jill and my friend Kai. Each of them came over and spent time with her just talking and playing games and sometimes just being quiet. It gave her an opportunity to open up if she felt she needed to. It might sound like an easy job but it was a huge commitment on their part because when I asked them to do this, we knew she was dying and they were committing to developing a stronger, deeper relationship with a child who was going to die so they were committing to having their heart broken even deeper. For that sacrifice I will never forget them. They filled gap that trained hospital professionals were not there to fill for my child and I am forever in their debt.