Will You Help Me Raise $750 To Fight Children’s Cancer?

My goddaughter would have turned ten this year, and that “would have” is your sign that this story does not end well.

I, along with many other loving relatives, held Rebecca when she took her last breath  on her sixth birthday – but that journey to her deathbed was long and agonizing.  I don’t think you can understand just how devastating cancer can be until you see an entire family riding that rollercoaster of hope; this test result looked good, this scan came back indicating everything is stable, and then the doctors sniffle back tears as they tell you that they’ve done everything they can do but this little girl won’t see her sixth birthday.

Rebecca was extraordinary.  She was determined to get her birthday cake.  So she held on, wanly eating cake the night before, passing on the next day.

I wish you could have met her.

But since you can’t, the next best thing I can do is my damndest to make it so that other kids won’t die of cancer.

And so on March 25th, I will shave my head to raise funds for cancer.  Admittedly, shaving the little poof of hair I have isn’t as significant as when I was luxuriously-maned metalhead, but it’s literally all the hair I have to offer.  (And it’ll be the first time I’ve been bald since I was a baby.)

I’m hoping to raise $750 to fight children’s cancer in the next three weeks.  If I hit that donation, I’ll post pictures of my incipient dome.  I’ll even take requests for anything else you might like to see me do.  So if you have the spare funds, I’m asking you to donate as much as you feel comfortable.

Because Rebecca has more of a legacy than many other kids who passed.  She’s tattooed on my arm.  She’s had a charity founded in her name.  Hell, because her Dad was an influential web designer, her favorite color is permanently embedded in your web browser.  That comforts me some days, even if it’s not as comforting as having her around gratuitously insulting me.  (She was the most sarcastic five-year-old you would have ever met.)

But I think of the other kids who died, and are dying right now, the parents hoping with all their hearts for some medical treatment that will stop that impending funeral.  Because remember, cancer’s not some monolithic disease, it’s actually a thousand difference variants, where some strains are more deadly than others.  A lot of cancers that were once death sentences are now commonly survivable.

And I think, “Maybe a couple bucks might make the difference for some child.”

If you think that too, well, I’d appreciate your donation.  Love to you all.