Dear friends, this is our letter for this year’s Walk for the Cure, for Juvenile Diabetes.  Our Western Carolinas Walk will be in Greenville, SC, on November 1st.  If you feel inclined to donate, we’d deeply appreciate it.  Or if you can’t, and can just put up a link to this post where others might donate, that would be a great gift to all the diabetic kids out there, like my own Seth.

Sincerely,

Edwin

 

When you think of heroes, who comes to mind?  Political figures?  Religious ones?  Warriors?  Liberators?  Comic book characters?  When you think of heroism, what do you envision?  Damsels rescued, sick persons saved, battles or games won?

When I think of heroes, I think of my son, Seth.  Seth is 11, and has endured juvenile diabetes since the ripe old age of five.  I know he’s heroic because he does not let diabetes break him, shape him or limit him.  Sometimes, as he checks his blood sugar and I hear the click, as the tiny lancet is launched into his finger, I see him wince.  It’s almost imperceptible.  ‘Does it hurt, buddy?’  ‘A little,’ he says, minimizing a thing that most adults would find miserable once, much less three to four times daily, for life.

Seth is a devoted medievalist, whose interests include ancient languages, ancient legends, myths, blacksmithing, sword-making, falconry, archery and just about any other skill that a noble young man of the Middle Ages might find fascinating.

Knowing that, and knowing the lifelong battle that faces him, I believe that he was born with a heroic spirit, on a par with his own heroes, like old Beowulf, or Arthur’s Knights.  Like Gideon of Joshua of the Bible.

If you read the epics, as Seth does, you’ll find that heroes are made heroic by struggle; and that their struggle always has a price.  The price of my son’s warfare is drop after drop of blood, stick after stick of tiny needles like the arrows of an enemy, and the eternal vigilance for his health that will see him through to a full life.  There is a battlefield to cross, and he is just the boy to do it.

Yep, that’s my hero.  An 11-year-old boy with a heart like Arthur.

Still, every hero needs encouragement and support.  Will you be a hero to the cause?  Will you help clear the way for my knight in shining armor?  Will you donate a little of your silver and gold to arm him for the fight?  Trust me, the war against diabetes is far from over.

But we can win, and one day Seth can raise his battle standard and say, ‘I did it!  And I can thank all of you for your help!  I’m cured!’

If so, please contact JDRF and donate to Team Leap.  Here’s the link to our page at the JDRF!

https://walk.jdrf.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=extranet.personalpage&confirmid=87100457 

Thanks for your time and consideration…and any prayers you might want to say for a cure!

May God bless you richly, today and always,

Jan, Edwin, Seth, Elysa, Sam and Elijah

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