Inspiration
Inspiration comes from the most unexpected places.

Not many people read this right now, but hopefully some day, this will touch someone, and inspire them to stop waiting, to act, and maybe to persevere.

After six weeks in Hong Kong, I've been back at home for a week now, with two more to go before returning to Hong Kong for another six. I've been working the overnight shift in order to have overlap with the Hong Kong working day, and it's been beating the crap out of me. I'm supposed to be in the office right now, but I'll be late today. My attitude changed tonight, and I have to write why, even if I'm writing only to me.

Tonight I went to dinner with an old friend, and between dinner and the email I received when I got home from dinner I'm reminded why I do the things I do, and why I am the way I am. My friend is trying to organize a fundraiser in coordination with the Wendy Larks Foundation, to happen just over a month before our Annual Celebration of Life event. It's going to be tough to do two events close together like that, and it's going to be a very tough sell to the Board. I didn't know if I had the energy to do two breast cancer walks, the COL and this new fundraiser. The upside for doing it is tremendous. A musician who she met is interested in doing a show in the Chicago area, and he has agreed to perform the event as a benefit for us. Most people won't recognize his name, but they'll know who he has played with. The details are sketchy right now, but this could get TWLF exposure that we couldn't buy. It could raise money for breast cancer. It could get me the connection that I've been looking for to have somebody read my songs. She's doing it for many reasons, but one of them is that her sister is a newly dubbed survivor, and her mother is a many year survivor. I hadn't talked to this person for almost two years, but she's back, most unexpectedly.

When I got back from dinner I took a nap, then decided to check email before going to the office. I received an email from a woman I met a few years ago. Our first contact was just a touch - I gave her a gift at the end of a breast cancer walk because her energy, joy and spirit reminded me of someone I was very close to, and that fostered the beginnings of friendship. The first time we met in person, it was as if we had been friends for years. We talk infrequently now, and this is a good deal my fault. I don't do a very good job keeping in touch with people. It is one of my fatal flaws. This person could be a good friend. She sends pictures periodically, and tonight I got one of these windows into her world. It was a photo album of a group of ladies she is associated with. Some are bald, some are recently bald, some wear chemo caps. All are wearing smiles. At first all I could see through my tears was those smiles, and I was reminded of Wendy, and her struggles, and her spirit, and her undying motivation to conquer her alien, and her lost battle. As I opened the album, and looked at each face, I noticed a detail of the pictures that I missed at first glance. Some of these women are wearing Cancer Sucks buttons from TWLF. Buttons that my hands pressed, in memory of Wendy, in honor of women just like these, who will never know who Wendy was, who I'll never know, but for whom I have the greatest respect.

And I was reminded of why I do the things I do, and why I am the way I am. And I was re-inspired in a most unexpected way, from an unexpected source. Time to stop pouting. I've got things yet to do, a purpose yet to fulfill. On with life.
- posted by LyleDeck @ 12:30 AM