Brennan’s Story
GoPro for a Cause
Did you ever see the GoPro for a Cause video for Turner’s song “Possibilities,” recorded by Darius Rucker for St. Jude? Thanks GoPro, Darius Rucker, and St. Jude! Find the song on iTunes today!
Continue Reading →Today Show Now and Then
Did you miss the Today Show special on Possibilities last December? Here’s the video, and take a look at little Brennan on the Today Show back in November 2012! Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Continue Reading →Brennan Holds a cracked Genome
Dr Bill Evans, CEO St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, thanks Brennan and Press On for helping fund the St Jude/Wash U. Genome Research project. Brennan holds a cracked Genome.
Continue Reading →Press On in the Morning
It is Friday morning, exactly one month since the Play for Press On tournament in Augusta. Thirty days ago, I woke early and jumped in with a literal army of compassionate volunteers who had taken a day of their lives to pull off this event. In its second year, it has already been ingrained as…
Continue Reading →Searching, Feeling, Holding
With a deep relaxing breath my eyes briefly close and the tension from my hobbled race through the Columbia, SC airport begins to fade. My thoughts drift to my beautiful new book, “Peace Like a River,” which sits dog-eared in my lap waiting to be finished. I close my eyes for a minute and drift.
Continue Reading →“See you later, again.”
Its been a long time, and that’s a good thing, I guess. I begin writing this from the darkness of my bed at Grizzly House on the St. Jude campus. The room is dark with the exception of residual light from my laptop monitor, concentrating its dull glow on me as Brennan sleeps soundly in the adjacent bed. It is our last night here from a fairly rigorous week of examinations, scans, screenings, samplings and reunion, as Brennan undergoes the most thorough check-up of his remission. It is now well past the middle of night. My mind is racing, so I write.
Continue Reading →Reconnecting
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
– Someone
…. At least that’s my belief, and I pray the belief of those who have communicated in some form or fashion that the Carepage and Blog updates about Brennan have been missing. Officially, the Carepage updates are over; however, with the new medium of our Press On website, and the Blog post section designed for the specific purpose of providing updates on Brennan, his health and status, I figure that we’ve laid off for long enough.
Continue Reading →The Possibilities
They say I’ll never swim in the ocean. They say I’ll never sing on the moon.
-Possibilities, Turner Simkins and Joe Stevenson
Last Fall, I was eating lunch with Turner and our friend, Joe Stevenson, the Executive Director of 12 Bands. Joe was sharing how much he was enjoying a creative songwriting phase in his life, and I mentioned how much I would love to write a song about childhood cancer which focused on the possibilities instead of the inevitabilities. I am and continue to be inspired by what the human spirit can accomplish when told, “you can’t.” Don’t get me wrong. I am a realist, but I am also a dreamer. If there is even the slightest possibility that something may be accomplished, some barrier may be pushed, some new ground broken, then I believe there is value in the effort of reaching for that possibility. If it turns out that the dream cannot be realized in the end, I tend to see how the dream actually was realized in every step taken toward its ultimate goal. The magic happens in the believing in the dream and the inspired action taken toward achieving the dream, not in reaching the ultimate goal.
Continue Reading →Looking Forward
“You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.”
– Crosby, Still, Nash and Young
Attending church by myself is not something I grew up doing. As a matter of fact, in such circumstances, I probably would have creeped myself out not that long ago. Things change, though. What would at one time have been a straight shot into the bowels of discomposure has transmogrified itself into an amazingly accurate channel for insight.
Continue Reading →Full Circle
Gasping atop the steps leading from the Mississippi to our home-away-from home atop the bluff in Memphis, the remaining warmth from the setting sun cascaded itself around the gigantic steel girders of the railroad bridge in front of me. Looking up, it was blinding.
Continue Reading →Homecoming
It is precisely because they play that we press on. As the song says, we’re changing day-to-day, but the children always play. Through our own life-experience with innocence, we have all lived. Whether through our past, our fervent devotion to our own children, or even a glancing appreciation for a joyful child we meet in passing, we are able to taste and feel the purity of life, the irreproachability of love. Things change. People die, but the children always play.
Continue Reading →Friendship
“Through the years we all will be together If the fates allow
and hang a shining star upon the highest bow, oh yeah,
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now”
Lyrics from “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” from the recollected perspective of CHristmas 2010
Monday, December 5, Brennan and I spent virtually the entire day at the hospital clinic. It was bone chilling cold outside; cold, windy and rainy, three of the primary ingredients strictly excluded from his daily lifestyle prescription. When it is my turn to be accompany this little man, days like this are maddening. Fortunately, he is feeling better, and therefore impatient and eager enough to pursue fun things unattainable on days like this.
Continue Reading →Limitless
“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.” – Richard Bach
Three weeks ago. November 2, 20011. Augusta, GA.
“Hey, Turner-san. Colleen (Dr. McDonough) and I just talked. It’s time to move this boy to Memphis.”
Silence.
Continue Reading →Unexpected Turn
“A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes”
Mark Twain
I guess we were expecting Brennan to catch a bug sooner or later. While endeavoring to plug as many holes in the bubble as we could, the bottom line is that: a) he’s a kid; b) it is approaching winter; and people are spreading germs left-and-right; and, c) the new immune system was bound to be put to a test someday.
Continue Reading →Broken Alleluia
Tuesday morning, October 4 2011 was my day with Brennan. We awoke early with the rest of the gang, helping Christopher and Nat getting with their breakfast (a la Tara’s usual pre-school chocolate-chip pancake recipe) and ready for school. These days Brennan is feeling pretty good, serving as the attache to whichever parent is leading the morning charge.
Continue Reading →Grace in a Glass of Milk
“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” – unknown author
It was a dream, thank God. All five of us were in a white cottage at the base of a mountain. It was a huge mountain range under a cornflower blue sky. This was not western North Carolina. We all walked from the back door and hiked to the top, where there was another cottage. Brennan, for some reason, stayed behind. …read more
Continue Reading →Independence
“Oh, don’t go too far
Stay who you are
Everybody knows
You only live a day
But it’s brilliant anyway
I saw you in a perfect place
It’s going to happen soon but not today
So go to sleep and make the change
I’ll meet you here tomorrow
Independence day”
Elliot Smith
The waning hours of Independence Day, 2011. All three of our boys were upstairs watching “Evan Almighty.” Intuited from the occasional thumps and giggles from the bedroom floor above us, there was more taking place than a DVD. read more
Continue Reading →A Homecoming Miracle
“The primary function of miracles is not to shock the senses but to bring revelation to grant us a glimpse of the divine and through that glimpse the opportunity to be transformed.”
From a book I picked up at Robin Smithwick’s house.
It was my night to stay with Brenny. Tara and I had spent most of the day rifling through every nook of the Bluff House in preparation for sorting, packing and gradually shipping our lives back to Augusta.
Continue Reading →A Shining Example
It is with a heavy, rejoicing and peaceful heart that I share Jeni Clark’s post this morning updating all of us on our wonderfully sassy Cassidy.
Continue Reading →Launch Delayed
posted on CarePages June13, 2011 Major General Urquhart: Hancock. “I’ve got lunatics laughing at me from the woods. My original plan has been scuppered now that the jeeps haven’t arrived. My communications are completely broken down. Do you really believe any of that can be helped by a cup of tea?” Corporal Hancock: “Couldn’t hurt,…
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