Friday, April 05, 2013

The heart is a bloom…shoots up through a stormy ground


If we’re lucky we get to have people in our daily lives that make a significant impact on us.  If we’re lucky, we also get a chance to have a significant impact on the world. If you make it your goal, your plan, your life, you can impact people in ways you probably can’t even fathom. And you may not ever know or understand how you’ve impacted them.
 


Bridget Spence is on such person.  Her short life impacted so many men and women that I’m certain she couldn’t have understood just how much. She’s gone now. Taken by a demon that has spent too long taking good, beautiful people.  
 
I “met” Bridget through the 3Day family. Her story was one that was shared to help inspire people and to help all of us understand that breast cancer doesn’t just take the old, it sneaks in and takes too many young ones too.  She was diagnosed just after college and has fought a brave, strong, courageous fight for 8 years.  I could not even image what living through a cancer diagnosis would be like, I’ve “lived” it from the outside looking in and that is no picnic. But to hear those words that you’ve got cancer must make your entire being want to shut down.  
 
Some do. Some just tuck themselves into their bed and don’t want to come out. 
 
Some just don’t know what to do. 
 
And then there are those that grab life by the horns and with all their strengths and dignity fight it to the bitter end. Bridget was that person. She chronicled her life in an amazing blog that I got turned onto a couple years ago.  I read it from start to finish then and have kept up with her religiously as she’s battled her way through.  She was determined to beat this. She had everything stacked against her and yet she fought on.  Go. Read her story.  Start from the beginning.  You’ll grow to love her as we all have. 
 
 
While I may never have met Bridget, I feel I know her.  So many of my 3Day family did know her and their hearts are broken today.  The world has lost a beautiful young lady. One who will not soon be forgotten and who’s journey will be spoken of for years to come. She may have moved on to that 3Day in the sky…be she will be with all of use, I guarantee, as we walk the 3Day this year. She certainly will be my co-pilot while I Walker Stalk. 
 
And if you’re sitting there wondering what you can do, donate to Susan G. Komen.  The clinical trials Bridget took part in were directly connected to grants given by Susan G. Komen.  She was allowed to spend more time on this earth because of donations.  


You can donate to my teammates if you feel so inclined.


0 comments: