Live Strong

"Where did you get those?" piped my five-year-old to a Cub Scout mama waiting with us to pick up her boys. She looked down at the two Live Strong bracelets on her left wrist, where his little index finger was directed. "I got them at the Children's Hospital," she replied, "when my little boy had cancer. That was six years ago and I have never taken them off. I never will, until maybe he gets his cure card in two years."

I immediately caught my breath, though Daniel was unfazed. "Oh," he said. "I been to that hospital," and he turned away to dance back and forth between the hot sun and the shade under the registration awning. I turned to the woman and mentioned that we knew Children's Hospital a little bit from Daniel's surgeries, agreeing with her that it was a wonderful place. As the sun set behind the mountains, we continued to wait for a Scout leader to retrieve our boys from their stations, and she told me her story.

Six years ago her little boy was exactly two years old (his birthday was the day we met), and he had a brain tumor. He was very sick, and the small town where they lived at the time had no resources to deal with the cancer. On his birthday, doctors estimated he had eight hours to live, and they prepared a life flight to get him to The Children's Hospital in Denver. Unfortunately, she was nine months pregnant with their second child, and the pilot would not take off with someone in her advanced stages of pregnancy. The woman said to me, "She took one look at me and said no."

So they took an ambulance all the way to the Hospital, a five-hour drive when they thought he had only eight hours to live. She said, "we thought he was going to die." But they made it to their destination, where doctors recognized the situation and acted immediately to save the boy. On that warm Friday evening he and his little brother were playing at camp with my son; it was a miracle, she said. I was so grateful that my sunglasses hid my weepy eyes; I could only nod in agreement.

I can't imagine living through that ambulance ride, or the time immediately thereafter. Can't imagine waiting eight years for a cure card, with the slim possibility of recurrence in the back of my mind the entire time. I can imagine - and am so grateful for - miracles. I am so grateful for health, for the kids, and for people who share their stories of love and triumph.