Hope Tom Would Be Proud.

[mlg]

Today I had a beer & wine tasting benefit in memory of Tom. The weather was absolutely beautiful. I hope he was looking down and smiling. So far we have earned over $3500 for pancreatic cancer research. I have often said I don't know what my purpose to stay here was but I hope that if it was this that he is proud.

[kath]

I'm sure Tom is proud, Mary Linda, as are we!

Kudos to you, my dear!

[kath]

Mary Linda,

I just read the book The Last Lecture by Ronald Pausch. He also died of pancreatic cancer. I was wondering if you've read it. You can see his lecture on You Tube, but the book seems to give more background. It's a wonderful legacy for his children. One I found of hope and a life well lived.

[mlg]

Yes, I read the book. In fact at the wine tasting benefit we had for Tom we had an autographed copy of the book. I can't remember exactly when I got it but it had to be one of the last things he signed because shortly after that he died. The sad thing was that a lot of people had no idea who he was even though I wrote a little paper about him so it didn't bring near as much money as I had hoped.

It was hard to read and some chapters almost made me vomit because they were so much like our story, especially seeing all those tumors in the liver. Luckily I was behind Tom when they came up on the screen because I thought I was going to die on the spot.

I agree that it is a very inspiring book, but a little bittersweet too.

Thanks for thinking about me.