Serendipity

I work pretty hard at my job. It takes some long hours, but for the most part, I'm happy with it, and enjoy being challenged personally and professionally. There are times when the demands of my role find me sitting on a conference call in the middle of the night, and while I really don't mind it, there have been times when a moment of frustration left me thinking, 'what are we doing talking about this at midnight?'. A crashed mail server is not life or death, and on a couple of occasions I have stopped and thought, 'we're not saving lives here -- we're not curing cancer...'. We get through it though. Such are the demands of my professional life.

A couple of months ago, I signed on for a personal challenge. I partnered on it with Lauren, put in a lot of hours and effort, and took myself in a direction I'd never been to at work. And a few days ago, I found myself working at midnight again, but for the first time, I was staying up late to cure cancer. And it felt amazing.

Lauren has run with a group called Team in Training for the past several years. The TNT folks are amazing -- they run, hike, bike and swim through endurance challenges, all while raising money and awareness for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. As both of our families have been touched by cancer, it has always been a good fit. She likes the challenges, and it is a cause we can get behind. We have never been on the front lines fund raising, though. We've supported other people's efforts, but the timing hasn't been right for us to throw ourselves into the commitment it takes to raise several thousand dollars. For some reason though, we finally felt the call to officially join the fight against blood cancers in October, and Lauren signed up to raise money in anticipation of participating in a spring triathlon.

Lauren signed up and agreed to raise $3000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Then we thought, 'how are we going to do that?'. We knew we didn't have the bandwidth to do this a little bit at a time for the next six months. We needed a big bang approach. We decided to host a party and silent auction for New Year's Eve. In mid-November, we booked a restaurant and began the process of inviting friends.

Around this same time, my dad was going through some tests, as he'd been not quite feeling like himself since returning from our Disney trip a few weeks earlier. We were somewhat concerned about the nature of those tests, but since he has always been an extremely healthy guy, we believed him when he said not to worry. It was nothing.

Except that it wasn't nothing. On the day before Thanksgiving we learned that my active, non-smoking, barely drinking, eating-right dad had been diagnosed with a form of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Stunned doesn't really begin to cover our reaction. Just like that, we learned first-hand about how awful and non-discriminatory these diseases are. That weekend we went through the shock, and then started processing, and by Sunday had gotten our collective minds to a point where we were ready to help him fight. And that Monday he got a pretty promising prognosis (although one that will require a daunting journey over the next six months). But we knew that with the right treatment, the right attitude and a whole lot of support, he could put it into remission.

I thought of the New Year's Eve event we were planning. What cruel irony.

But then I thought a little more. I thought about all of the amazing people at TNT and LLS who have been raising money and awareness for research into these types of illnesses for years. And I thought maybe things happen for a reason. Maybe Lauren and I had decided to be active fund raisers this year because we would need it to help us cope. I realized we owed a debt of gratitude to those who came before us. To those that had researched for so long. To those that created the medicines that would save my dad's life. And we owed someone else who doesn't even have cancer yet, but will find out five years from now that they do. And that person will be happy to learn that someone cared enough to wage this battle and help to fund five more years of research.

It became very clear to me on the morning of December 1 that our New Year's Eve party had to be a success. We had to hit our goal, had to pour ourselves into it, and quite frankly, had to lean on our friends for help. At that point, I think we'd only sold a handful of tickets... lots of interest, but no sales. I sent an impassioned note to our friends, asking shamelessly for their support. And, in no uncertain terms, the support came. It came in a way that moves both of us to tears when we think about it. It is humbling. And it reinforces everything that we both know to be true about how good people can be. Our friends created a wave of support and good karma that literally carried my family through the most difficult month we have ever endured, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Once in awhile, we think about moving from Vermont. Not because we don't like it, but because we think it might be fun to experience something different. Maybe Colorado or Wyoming. Some bigger hills and bigger snowfalls. We're still young, the kids are young and there is a big world out there for us to experience. But proximity to our family and to the greatest collection of friends two people could ever hope to have keeps us rooted. I'm not sure we could ever leave.

In hindsight, hosting a fund raising event the week after Christmas may not have been the best idea. It is a difficult time to ask for money. And yet, literally everyone we know stepped up. Initially, I thought we could sell 80 tickets... maybe 100 if we got some help. We sold over 130. People who could not attend the event still bought tickets and made donations. We asked for silent auction donations. Not a single friend declined. Instead, they asked how much we could use. We received an auction item from a friend in Connecticut who has met my dad only once. We received handmade jewelry and gift certificates for services. Someone asked their parents to make a donation to our efforts in lieu of buying them any Christmas presents. Our friend's daughter sold sixteen tickets by herself. You just can't make this stuff up. Then, we asked the same people who had purchased tickets and donated auction items to step up and bid on those items. And they did. And when the dust settled on January 1, we had eclipsed our goal by over $1000.

When we started this, it was a chance to work together to support a great cause. In the middle, it became personal. And in the end, my word had shifted from irony to serendipity. Somehow we knew in advance we had to do this, and the success we enjoyed was overwhelming. It has helped us, and it has helped my parents, who have always encouraged our family to give back whenever you can. It absolutely paid us back far more than the time we invested. I don't think I can allow this to be a one-shot deal. Plans are already underway for a different type of event next year. Bigger and better. Stay tuned.

A friend of mine recently told me that a major life event is like a magnifying glass that exposes ones true self. Lauren and I have stared through that glass a lot over the past six weeks, and I am thrilled to say that our friends are exactly who we thought they were. Maybe more, if that were possible. Our deepest thanks to all of you.