Archive for April, 2008
Walk 2008 was a blast!
Walk day this year was a lot better than last year, simply because there hadn’t been a blizzard, and everyone on our team could make it!
And as you can see, a whole lot of other people did, too! We estimated that we had over 8,000 people at the walk this year! We had more inflatables, more exhbitors, more food from the vendors, It was a great day! There were hundreds of people still there when we had to shut things down for the day.
Our team fundraising goal was $10,000. With the help of a few new people on our team, we were able to exceed that. We got Amber’s YMCA after school teachers on our team, and they raised over a thousand. One of my friends that I met through JDRF joined our team this year, and she raised almost two thousand. Plus we’ve had more of our friends raise even just a hundred dollars. My fundraising was even more than last year, and Thrivent Financial is going to do another team matching gift of $3,000! Thanks, Jeff Olson!
The Walk Awards banquet is May 6th, we’ll see how well we stack up with all the other walk teams. Until then, thanks to all of Amber’s Angels!
How do you tell your child we may never find a cure?
Tonight Amber showed me a couple Barbies that she’d been playing with today, and one of them she’s always said is her twin. It’s got blond hair, and she dresses it with the same kinds of clothes she wears. She held held that one up and said, “This is me all grown up. See what’s different?” I didn’t understand what she was thinking at first. I said something about what she was wearing, and I made a joke about Amber growing up to only be a foot tall, like that Barbie.
She said, “No, Daddy. She doesn’t have diabetes.”
It was all I could do to not cry. I just hugged her, because she was in such a great mood that I didn’t have the heart to explain to her right then that we never find a cure for this damn disease which has invaded our lives.
Now I get to spend the night thinking about how I’m going to talk to her about this tomorrow. A Monday is an appropriate day to break your child’s heart.