Putting it to good use.

Over the past few months, two people within my sphere have been confronted with the challenge of being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

The first person, a man who had just retired from job after many years and who was looking forward to retirement, complained about being dizzy back around Memorial Day weekend. He died in August. He went into the hospital and that was pretty much it, for the next twelve weeks he did the shuffle people who confront life threatening illness do and finally he succumbed. It has been a tremendous blow to his family. At the same time when a person in your family is confrronted with any kind of illness, there is a helplessness people as they watch a loved one undergo what can be a life ending battle.

The second person is a peer who had been diagnosed long ago with a tumor and had thought the matter had been resolved only to find it hadn’t. Her symptoms came upon her and she knew something was wrong. The upshot was she had to become her own advocate and wound up having both surgery and then undergoing an arduous round of radiation therapy.

When things like these happen, you want to make some kind of gesture, some show of support.

I had been thinking about this very thing over the last two months. Trying to come up with a way to do something good.

Originally, I had thought about shaving my head and trying to elicit some kind of donations from people to put towards a related charity. I figure there are more than a few people in this world who would pay money to see me look foolish, so why not put that to good use? I looked around but I wasn’t finding the charity I wanted.

Then a week or so ago I was out with someone and she mentioned something in passing. My ears immediately perked up! I had never heard about it before but it still fit the bill. It’s an organization called, Locks of Love:

WHAT IS LOCKS OF LOVE?

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers.

So, suffice to say I will be sporting a much shorter doo by Halloween.