So, I haven’t blogged a whole lot lately. Last week, life got the best of me as my paternal grandparents died within 22 hours of each other, first my grandpa and then my grandma. I wrote a blog about how it was the best love story ever. Check it out if you haven’t already!
Anyways, I have a few things for today, all good in their own way.
Danielle Sterling Gets to Race 4 Free
Danielle Sterling only had to raise $100 to get a free race entry courtesy of Operation Jack. She’s raising money for the Autism Society of Maine and as part of my Race 4 Free program, all she has to do is raise $100 for them and Operation Jack will cover her entry into the Maine Coast Marathon. The way I see it, if she doesn’t go above that $100, but she raises money that wouldn’t have been raised, then effectively she’s helping me pick an autism charity to donate money to.
However, she aimed for $500 just for the heck of it, kind of a pie-in-the-sky goal. A funny thing happened when she did that, though — she surpassed her goal in about a day! Now she’s well over $800 and is eyeing $1,000. Autism Society of Maine wins, she gets to race for free, and the way I see it, about $100 of Operation Jack money resulted in $1,000 being raised for an autism charity that needs the resources. Oh, and I’m sending tech shirts to her donors, too.
It’s a win all the way around, and I have to say, I really enjoy being able to do little things like this.
Let me know if you want me to cover a race entry for you. $100, that’s all you have to raise, and I’ll send you a tech shirt to run in, too!
Best Start To A Eulogy Ever?
At my grandparents’ funeral last week, my uncle and my dad both spoke for about 5-10 minutes each. My grandparents had three sons, no daughters, and like my son Jack, their third son has autism. He’s 54, so I’ve been aware of autism my whole life — well before Jack was born. Originally, my uncle wasn’t going to speak. But in the middle of the service, he changed his mind and ran up to talk after my dad was done.
Everybody was smiling, eager to hear what he would say, how he would remember them. He can be a wildcard, but we all thought it was cool that he decided to go up there and say something. What he would say would was the intrigue of the day. I spoke to him the day before to see how he was doing, because he was very close to his parents. He was upset, but handling things fairly well. He has an amazing memory and I was interested in his perspective when he decided to speak during the funeral. The way he started, though, … wow …
I’m going to be brief. [pause] In 1968, …
We all smiled and kind of silently chuckled because we had no idea what brief meant to him. He actually ended up giving a great, heartfelt speech, which wasn’t too long and wasn’t too short.
My Super-Kind Co-Workers
When I finally got back to work Tuesday after five days out of the office, I wasn’t sure how many of my co-workers knew why I was gone. I work on a small team (about five of us) but there are probably 100+ people at my office and I interact with a fair amount of them. When I got in, one of my teammates handed me a card and I didn’t know if it was from him or what and I said thank you and that I’d open it later. He insisted that I open it right then, so I did, and I was surprised to see that about 30 of my co-workers signed it. I thought it was really nice of them.
But then on top of that, there was an envelope inside, and they all contributed towards a donation that ended up being $300, which they gave to Operation Jack. I’m actually going to donate it to the City of Hope, which is a cancer charity. My grandparents worked hard as volunteers for City of Hope for years and years and it took me about half a second to make that decision when I saw that the donation.
It was super nice of my co-workers to do that, though. I really appreciated it — super nice action on their part that they absolutely didn’t have to do. I figured a few people might come over and welcome me back, but to know that they collectively donated $300 to charity in my grandparents’ honor and memory? I felt really, really happy and grateful and was pretty speechless.
That’s all for today, have a great Wednesday![subscribe2]
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