The low after the high.. I have realized this happens to me after all our Unravel event. I think just identifying it helps me deal with it a little bit.

I get to talk about her.. to know she will be known by all in the room by the nights end. And I couldn’t do any of that without her finding a way to me. I need her. As I speak out loud I silently speak to her. One moment in particular.. I looked over at 3 very dear friends of mine standing.. crying.. supporting each other as I spoke.. I looked at them and continued on out loud with my speech while talking to her privately.

look sissy, they are friends now.

we did that!

This was our first MNO in San Jose.. the first one of these events in my neck of the woods. So I felt a stronger pressure for me to do well. So many friends from different times in my life.. so many people who have now fallen in love with my Jennifer. And a lot of my family was there, a sister and some of my sister in laws and my mom.. I really wanted to make them proud of me. . My first time getting to show them what this is all about.

For much of my life I was the youngest of 6, in my 20’s my parents adopted my younger brother and sister from Russia so now I am the 6th of 8!! You thought I was a little nuts with 5 kids .. now you know its nothing!

I think a lot of who I am is still that girl I was growing up. . the baby sister.. demanding of attention and yearning for acceptance…the youngest.

I screwed up a ton.. I went through a lot in my younger years and I put them through a lot as well. .. Lots of really bad choices. I think I still feel like I have to make up for it. I think I still always want to make them proud … for them to see I have grown up and done good. .. after so much bad.

Drama and controversy pretty much constantly swirled around me, and it never really stopped. Infertilty struggles followed by severe infertility.. then adoption failure and finally success. Then came pregnancies that actually stuck.. but were very dramatically difficult. Celiac disease.. and then she needs a MRI.. She has a tumor. DIPG. A death sentence. At 6. She moved to heaven. A whole new life.. with a whole new “business”.

So to have many of them there for the first time at a Unravel event was both exciting and nerve-wracking.. I wanted to make them proud and for them to see I am doing good. Because sometimes I feel like I have everybody else tricked. . into thinking I am something and someone I am not. I am so scared that I am fooling people and that one day this will all just disappear.

I told myself if they come to one of our events and could see how incredible what we are building is.. then maybe I will allow myself to see it to.

**I saw the above picture and smiled. So I was surprised by the sudden tears that followed. Cancer stole so many moments like this from Charlotte. I hope she knows.. I do so much of this for her.. so when she is a mom she is never confronted with cancer ripping her family apart. **

So much in my life still feels like make believe.. Like I am just faking my way through the day. Going through the motions of living and of running Unravel. .. that soon it will just crumble away .. Because I am just faking it all.  But I think they saw it.. Unravel. Its real. Its true and it most certainly is not me!

Unravel is only successful because of the people who believe in our mission and donate themselves to help it come to fruition. 

SJ MNO was an incredible night and the perfect example of that.  I love getting up on stage and talking about her. I love sharing the information I have learned.. I love seeing people care about her.. about me.. And I love seeing them motivated to do something about it. But I could never pull this off .. not even in the slightest way if it was left up to me. My family knows me.. and they damn well know that!! Having them at such a successful event cemented it for me.

To start to be able to trust in what we have built. To start to see how this is real. That I simply began the machine but am not solely responsible for keeping it running. Because if its not me .. then I believe it can truly succeed.

I am so very happy to be confident in my role as just a piece of it, to stand back on a night like that and watch. Not what I have built but what I am part of. It is so much bigger than me.. so much stronger than me.. And I am so grateful to be part of it all.

Unravel pediatric cancer. A great idea.. a lofty goal ..and simply incredible to watch happening.

I am just a piece of it

but you little girl,

you will always be

the wings that fan the flame.

…until there is a cure..