This weekend, I’ll be getting some blue hair to support the Make A Wish Foundation of Eastern Ontario. To support our team, click here. Or read on, to find out why we’re going blue and who it’s for.
Do you remember what it was like to be a child?
I used to think I remembered. I remembered being the youngest. I remembered trips and adventures. I remembered elementary school dramas. I remembered our pets and our family and the woods behind our house and living in my imagination, so much in my imagination.
Then I had a child. When I had a child, I really remembered. I remembered everything I had forgotten about being a child, because I saw it all in her. I remembered learning. I remembered how I thought everything I was learning new, WAS new, how that colour “turquoise” must have been just invented because I had never seen it before. I remembered the wonder of small things: of bugs and icicles, of frost on the windows and the magic of stories. I remember now how important the little things really were. And as I watch the memories form in my daughter, I realize how important they are. I know now that when I play her a song and she asks me to play it over and over and she learns the worlds and dances her little wiggly dance with her fingers pointed in the air, that song is becoming a part of her. And when she’s 24 or 44 or whatever and hears that song, I now know she’s going to be instantly 3 years old again and dancing with me in the living room, and now I know how precious that is.
This past weekend, we were at a Children’s Gala - a fundraiser for CHEO - and Cinderella was there. My girl’s favourite princess. She was not more than 2 metres from Cinderella the entire night. She danced with her, she hugged her, she cuddled her and wouldn’t leave her side. That was a special night for her, and a precious, precious memory for me.
This stuff… this stuff is so important. Memories are the things we build our lives on.
The Make A Wish Foundation is in the business of making sure that children and their families get good memories. They grant the wishes of seriously ill children - whether it’s a trip to Disney, to ride on a fire truck, to meet a real pony. These children have faced enormous struggles - hospitals and tests and procedures and illness - and in many cases, their futures are uncertain. The Make A Wish foundation changes their lives every single day by making sure these kids have amazing memories. But they can’t grant these wishes without the generosity of the community - of people like you.
This weekend, some friends and I are going blue. Our hair, to be exact. That’s right. Me and my overly-processed hair are going to go blue - at least some of it - all to raise money for the Make A Wish foundation of Eastern Ontario. And we’re doing this in honour of a little girl, a little girl who left too soon. She went to bed one night, and she didn’t wake up. She is now sadly, devastatingly, gone in body - but she lives on in memory, in the memories of her family and her friends, in the memories of wonderful trips, of adventures, of laughter, of dancing and of love.
Electronic tax receipts will be issued for all eligible donations. Thank you in advance for your support.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m in! Also, watching your little girl tail Cinderella at the Gala was awesome! I love that kids can bring out the believer in all of us!
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Cinderella is my favourite Princess too.
An good friend of mine’s daughter was diagnosed with Leukaemia a few years ago, and just recently with bone death, she got to go to NYC with the Make a Wish Foundation. They are awesome peeps!!
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