Thinking of Alan One Year Later

St. Baldrick's remembered Alan, one for their five Ambassadors for 2014, with this beautiful picture and an entry on the Foundation blog

We spent the first anniversary of Alan's passing doing his favorite things. We started at his preschool, where we presented them with a little kid-sized bench for the playground. Pastor Barz had a lovely prayer to dedicate the morning, and the staff surprised us by passing out bubbles for all the children to blow. We had presented a bench to the elementary school the previous day and loved how enthusiastically the kids in PPCD and Ready, Set, Go wanted to sit on it.


With Kevin and Alan's teacher Ms. Anna


Little benches for Alan's little friends


The benches were given to Alan's two schools with great thanks for their support


At Crown of Life with Pastor Barz and Director Diane Dillow

We went on to lunch at Chuck E. Cheese with one of our little friends and just remembered all the good times Alan had there. We gave out cups of tokens in Alan's memories, using the cards from the Random Acts of Kindness project.


Tokens in Alan's memory

We took some the balloons from preschool to Alan's grave and blew him bubbles there.


Balloons and bubbles for Alan

We had dinner at Perico's. The boys loved the playground there and we had Alan's fourth birthday dinner there, where he got to sport a flashy blue sombrero. He had been walking so well then, recovering from the hemipelvectomy and even occasionally ditching his speedy bright green walker. It was a very hopeful and happy time.


Alan's fourth birthday dinner at Perico's

We capped the day at Krispy Kreme. As luck would have it, the hot light was on which meant the production line was running. Alan loved to watch the donuts come off the line, I think even more than eating them. It was the perfect way to end a day of remembering our Alan.

The first Angel-versary

We often hear how special we are as a family. To take what we went through and turn it into drive to raise money for research into a cure. How we've shown steadfastness in the face of adversity. Maybe we are special... but if we are it is because you - our friends, our family, our community - have made us that way.

Dealing with cancer has sometimes been described as facing the dragon. The thing is though, it is rarely possible to take on the dragon alone. Usually, you want an army at your side. They're there to fight with you, to help you up when you fall, to take the fight to the dragon when you need to rest. And what we have seen in our army of supporters we have also seen when we look in the mirror. We know that if you had to, you would rise to the occasion as we had to... because we saw it in how you rose to help us.

We truly do not believe we are special, but circumstances have forced us to step to the challenge. While obviously there are some people out there that break in the face of adversity, we know that our friends, neighbors and community are the type of people who would face it head on as we have, because they have been beside us and behind us to hold us up through our trials.

It was hard to face a new year for the first time without Alan, but knowing that he would continue to make an impact as one of five St. Baldrick’s 2014 Ambassadors was something for us to focus on. And we are grateful for wonderful friends that are organizing fundraisers to recognize the first anniversary of Alan's passing.

Through Alan's fight, we had met some childhood cancer survivors who gave us hope that not only could Alan beat cancer, but also pursue a full life. Shelby Robin was one of Alan's wonderful nurses at MD Anderson. Dr. Greg Aune shaves with Harold at the San Antonio St. Baldrick's event, sits on the organizing committee for the event with Judy, and is a pediatric oncologist and physician scientist at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute. We looked at them and hoped we were looking at Alan's future. He was so sharp, so curious, and had so much potential. Alan was tenacious and relentless, qualities that sometimes drove us crazy but that stood him in good stead through his fight with cancer and we hoped they would carry him through his future.

Supporting childhood cancer research is important to us. We hope one day that other families won't have observe an anniversary like this. We hope that one day more kids will have Shelby and Greg's future. Continuing the fight keeps Alan alive for us, creating a legacy for him - one that he didn't have the chance to create for himself.

Alan and Shelby do "Hurray!


Farewell angel


A retrospective of Alan's first year, one year after we had to say good bye

If you are interested in attending one of the fundraisers being held on January 31 to mark the first anniversary of Alan's passing, here are the details.

Alan's Angels Bunco Night - DFW
Alan's Angels Bunco Night - San Antonio

Introducing one of St. Baldrick's 2014 Ambassadors!

Back in August, we were contacted by the St. Baldrick's Foundation - they wanted to know if we would be willing to include Alan as one of their 2014 Ambassadors. The five Ambassadors they choose every year represent the thousands of kids who face childhood cancer. One of the Ambassadors is always an angel like Alan, to represent the one in five children who don't survive.

We took a little time to think about it, if we would be up to the commitment so soon after Alan had passed. But it wasn't a hard choice - if we can help raise awareness about childhood cancer and the need for research, if we can help bring attention to the Foundation and it's mission, then it something we had to do.

So far it has meant going through photos and choosing the favorites we wanted to share and working on Alan's story. Now that the Foundation has announced the names of the 2014 Ambassadors, we will be more active. We look forward to sharing Alan's story with a wider audience.