Victory for Colin

Hi friends! I’m here to post an update on our family and share a wild story. We had a nice Christmas out of town at Sam & Erin’s house with Garrett & Christian and Dan, Trevor & I. It’s incomprehensible that this was our second Christmas without our beloved Colin, not that we ever really do anything without him. We carry him from the first breath of each morning until we close out each night. The sorrow is still our regular companion, but we all are finding the strength and the hope to carry on.
Trevor is in 8th grade and doing very well at school and enjoying teenage activities with his friends and, of course, time with family. He’s getting tall and his voice has deepened so that he almost sounds like Colin. He is playing basketball and joined the snowboard team at school. We are blessed at the strength and tenacity Trevor demonstrates daily and his joyful attitude toward life. Colin would be so proud of his little brother and the resiliency he exhibits daily.
Now for the wild story about this page. My personal page was hacked in March 2021. Then this page was stolen. I tried for months to restore my rightful ownership but was unsuccessful. It was devastating to me to lose access Colin’s page and felt almost like losing him again and my community of support.
In November, I shockingly regained access to my personal page, albeit limited. Victory for Colin was still inaccessible to me as I had been removed from being the admin. His page was managed in Vietnam! Last week, the person acting as admin started responding to my messages. He said he was sorry and that he had gained access from a hacker. He promised to restore it to me. A week passed with sporadic communication. He told me not to worry. I had to trust someone who gained access to the page illegally to do the right thing. I poured my heart out to him through messenger telling him about my beautiful Colin. Friends, tonight he did it -he gave me my page back!! It’s been 10 months since I was hacked & it seemed almost impossible to ever get it back! I am beyond grateful tonight, one more step in our healing journey.

Today is World Cancer Day, but when cancer has invaded your life like it has ours, everyday is cancer day. Like many people, cancer has impacted my life repeatedly, affecting family members, friends, colleagues, students, and most viciously, my son Colin.

Pediatric cancer is especially incomprehensible, striking children without reason or lifestyle causation and absolutely gutting families. I have watched children fight with such beautiful strength and heart-wrenching agony. They fight for a future most people take for granted. Many fight for a future they’ll never have. I watched Colin hold in his pain and fight that monster with his final breath, hiding the truth to protect my heart. He is forever my hero!

Today, let’s remember what the world has lost - the empty bedrooms, the empty chairs, the grieving parents, the lonely siblings, the teammates, the friends, the stolen futures, and too much to ever really enumerate. I pray there comes a day when parents will not have to hear those shattering words, “Your child has cancer.”

Thank you for reading this and honoring and remembering the life of my strong, beautiful son Colin.