News & Events

 Catie Team,

      Spring is popping out all over.  The illegally planted crocuses in front of Catie’s grave, (Christine made me do it) are popping and so are the prayers for Catie’s Kids and an end to pediatric cancer. (We planted purple, Catie’s favorite and they are coming up yellow which is the color of Hope).  Just a few days ago, we asked that you join us in prayer so that we could record one million prayers for the eradication of pediatric cancer.  With Catie’s birthday April 23^rd just over a month away, we are pulling out all the stops, contacting prayer groups, colleges, Adoration Societies, Convents, Nursing homes etc. to invite and inspire people to join us, and it is our humble request that you do the same.  We have been blessed by the Sisters at EWTN who will be in 24 Hour Eucharistic Adoration until Catie’s birthday praying for a future when no child ever has to hear the words that Catie heard, “you have cancer and there is nothing we can do to stop it.”

      I can remember when we met with Dr. Phillips at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and were trying to determine what kind of tumor Catie had and what the best options were.  There was the St. Jude protocol, (the one Catie eventually participated in at St. Jude), and a protocol from Boston Children’s Hospital.  Like all parents faced with two options and only one chance to save our child, we asked which one offered Catie the best chance at survival and a future.  Dr. Phillip’s answer was that it would take fifty years because of the rarity of Catie’s tumor to have enough patients on the two protocols and be able to determine which one had a greater degree of success.  While we were crestfallen, Catie chimed in from across the room, “that’s ok, I’m only seven, we have time.”

      What childlike faith, hope, and optimism.  Unfortunately, doctors and parents are having similar conversations to the one we had with Dr. Phillips at hospitals across the country today and they need our prayers.  Over 20,000 prayers have been said in the last 3 days.  We may never know God’s response.  Perhaps there is a child today that we will never know about who had one rogue cell that was about to begin to rapidly reproduce, and because of you storming heaven, that cell died instead and that child’s life was spared.  Perhaps a parent, under the strain of having a sick child, daunting financial responsibilities, chose not to abandon his family and leave his marriage, because of your prayers.

      Please log on today to www.catieswish.org/praytoday and say a prayer.  Say a Rosary and log 60 prayers.  Go to church for an hour and log 60 prayers.  If you go with someone else, log 120 prayers.  If you sing a prayer, log it twice because singing is praying twice.  Know that as you pray for Catie’s Kids, we are praying for you.  We have one seventh grade Religion class who are praying at the beginning of each class together.  That is 44 prayers.  They add up….once you start!!

 Pray today and pass it on.  The prayer you say today will make a difference in a child’s tomorrow and it will make a difference in your life as well!

 Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Mia, Molly, M.E., and always Catie

Good evening Catie Team!!

 Now that we have entered the season of Lent, we begin preparing for Easter.  At the same time, we are preparing for Catie’s birthday which falls this year on the day before Easter.  Many of the preparations are parallels as we focus on prayer and giving to those less fortunate than ourselves for both Easter and Catie’s tenth birthday.  Prayer continues to be the unique attribute of Catie’s Wish, and we believe that in the end, it will provide the answer to the battle with pediatric cancer.  To that end, we are asking for your help.  The following is a link to a special new page of Catie’s website.  (www.catieswish.org/praytoday)  This link contains a counter that records every visit to the page.  It is our hope that between now and Catie’s birthday that we can record a million hits to the page signifying a million prayers that have been said for Catie’s Kids or for an end to pediatric cancer.  Will you help us?  All we ask is that you share the link and visit the page daily and say a prayer as you do so.  Thousands prayed for Catie around the world, can we now pray in her name and storm heaven together with a million prayers??  I believe we can!!

 Another exciting event coming up in the Catie’s Wish world in the first annual 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament in Mechanicsburg, PA sponsored by Catie’s Wish and 99 Series.  You will remember 99 Series as the publisher of Jared Trexler’s book, 99 Things you Wish you Knew Before Filling out Your Hoops Bracket.  Jared and 99 Series have partnered with us not only on the book, but on the tournament as well.  Log onto www.catieswish.org/give to get details on the tournament and to register.

 I want to share one amazing story with you.  On Wednesday night, as we were finishing dinner and getting the kids ready for bed, the doorbell rang and 3 of the girls from Catie’s class at St. Joseph’s and their moms were at the door.  They came in and after we talked for a bit, the girls presented Christine with a beautiful box wrapped in a purple bow and topped with a purple flower.  Christine opened the box and read the letter that was inside.  The letter read:

                   It Truly is Better to Give than to Receive….

In the short time that Catie was with us, she gave us much and taught us much….lessons we continue to put into practice each day.

 A few weeks ago, with the help of our parents, we had a joint 10^th birthday party to which we invited the entire 4^th grade.  Since we have been blessed with many things, we asked that in lieu of gifts, that anyone attending the party, simply bring a donation for Catie’s Wish.  In lieu of favors, our parents made donations to Catie’s Wish as well.

 42 4^th graders (including ourselves) plus siblings attended the party.  We had a fabulous time and even more importantly our birthday “wish” to raise money for Catie’s Wish was granted by the generosity of our classmates’ families and our own families.

 That being said, our birthday present is actually a present for you in honor of Catie’s upcoming birthday.  We are very proud and honored to be able to present you in this box, donations totaling $2,100 for Catie’s Wish.  Catie obviously continues to be an inspiration to so many, but especially her fellow classmates and their families.  We have no doubt that she was at our party with us, celebrating and having a good time with her St. Joe’s family who still love, admire, and miss her very much.

 With love and prayers today and always,

Lauren, Makenna, Lauren, and our families

 To say that we were awestruck would be an understatement.  I cried as I read the letter the first time, and just cried again as I typed it.  While I know that the girls are right that Catie was absolutely with them at the party, I really do wish that she was there in body and not just spirit.  I miss her.  It is strange, in the months following Catie’s death, I would go around a corner and almost expect to see her waiting there.  While that does not happen anymore, (I guess I have gotten used to the fact that she is gone) what happens now is that as I watch the Fab 5 grow and mature, I want to share new experiences with Catie but do not have that opportunity. 

 The Fab 5 are good.  Maggie had her first Mass as an altar server tonight and did a great job.  Max and Mia begin track for the St. Joe’s team on Monday, and Molly and M.E. are continuing to amaze us each day.

 Please remember to share the prayer link and visit it daily as we strive to reach our million prayer goal!!

 God is good, all the time

 Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Mia, Molly, M.E., and always Catie

 When Christine wrote the last update, Scarred but Whole, she talked about the last two and a half years, the pain and the healing, the hope and the sorrow, the death and the life that has emerged from it.  This past week has been difficult and challenging.  It has been filled with St. Jude events, anniversaries of Catie’s last days on earth and of our goodbyes and memorials of her.  Two years is a long time in some ways and yet this week, it seems like just yesterday.  Each of us deals with it in our own ways and as we witness one another and love one another and see how we each react, the reactions compound.  Molly for example chose to wear an outfit on Sunday that was one of Catie’s favorites and when she walked into the room, with the obvious exception that she has a full head of hair, she could be Catie’s twin.  The mannerisms, the speech patters and inflections, the physical similarities are uncannily exact and while it is a clear indicator that life goes on, it makes the hole where Catie isn’t seem even larger.

 As Christine and I were lying in bed the other night, we discussed how we were doing and whether or not we really were whole, or if we were so entirely broken that our perspective was shot.  We prayed and talked about what whole really was and came up with different models to describe it.  An apple is whole.  Once you take a bite of it, it is no longer whole.  But now, it is open.  Aren’t we all called to share who we are and what we are with one another?  We could share the apple and it could in some way be thought of as whole, yet a part of all of us who shared in it.  As parents of Catie and the fab 5, we have certainly attempted to be open, to allow others to see inside in the faint hope that people could learn from our path without having to sacrifice a child to walk it.  Our constant message to anyone who would listen, (and it came from Catie herself), hug and love the people in your life, do it today, and keep doing it, you may never know how important that next hug or expression of love may be. 

 At that point in the conversation, the Holy Spirit and maybe Catie herself stepped in and Christine listened to them and asked me if she could look at my wedding ring.  I removed it and as I did so, we both realized the beauty of the symbol.  It is whole and open.  Whole because it is an unbroken circle without beginning or end, and open.  And like the perfection of the circle, it fulfills its purpose when its openness is shared in the placing of the ring upon the finger.  It is not only a symbol, but is also in reality; all about unity.  That ring and all that it represents is a touchstone for me.  It keeps me grounded even when life feels like one giant upheaval.  Christine is the source of some of that upheaval as I am sure I am for her, but at the end of the day, she is also the source of the healing and stability and balance that makes the upheaval bearable.  My hope is that whatever cross you carry in your day that you have someone to walk by your side as you carry it who loves you as much as Christine loves me.  Losing Catie to cancer has been the cause of some challenging days, but I have shared each of them with the woman of my dreams.

Sometimes sharing something with the one you love helps them.  In a sense, the pain or hurt, once shared is halved.  Today is the feast of the Presentation of Jesus.  Mary and Joseph took forty day old Jesus to the temple with two turtledoves and offered Him back to His Father.  As parents, we do that with our children.  They are a gift from God, yet we baptize them and offer them back to Him.  We want to get them back to Him, in heaven where they will be safe and happy forever.  At the temple, Mary and Joseph met Simeon and Anna, two people who spent their day in prayer until God called them home.  Simeon tells Mary that because of who Jesus is, she will feel pain and a “sword will pierce her heart”.  I do not know what Joseph said to that, I do not know how he attempted to comfort Mary.  A mother’s love is an amazing strong, beautiful, delicate gift.  As a father, I cannot understand it completely, and if I was supposed to I imagine God would have given me different chromosomes.  The love and therefore the sadness Christine feels two years after Catie’s journey home is different than mine.  I can try to understand it, try to comprehend it and put it in my own terms, but at the end of the day, all I can really do is stop talking and hold her, provide her with some sense of home until God reunites us all.  We can never fully understand another person’s feelings, even if we walk a mile in their shoes.  What we can do is let them know that we love them and accept them wherever they are, say a prayer for them and offer a shoulder or a hug, or a smile.

 We spent last weekend with Christine’s brother Bill (aka Uncle Bill) and the kids had a wonderful time.  Max celebrated his birthday (he is now twelve!!) with his wonderful group of friends and had a great day.  It was much better than two years ago when his birthday was the day of Catie’s funeral.  He and Maggie represented their school in a regional “MathCounts” competition and did very well.  The fab 5 are good kids, and give us some beautiful moments as parents as we see them interact with one another.  While they are at odds at times, it is wonderful to see them work together; Sunday for example, they produced a highly effective coordinated attack upon me with an array of snowballs and shovelfuls of snow.  On Saturday, the fab 5 and Christine went snow tubing in the backyard, crashed multiple times into the fence around the garden, and looked to be on the edge of impending disaster.  Hearing the peals of laughter from the six of them, knowing the joy that was in their hearts felt as good as anything in the last two years. 

 There is a current marketing campaign for Kay Jewelers, a major supporter for St. Jude, that speaks about their open heart collection.  The goal of their campaign is to sell jewelery – that is their business.  Their slogan speaks right to the heart – love can only enter into an open heart – perfectly fitting for this time of year.  Fill your life with those you love and keep telling them how much you love them.  We tell this to Catie everyday and know that she hears us – some days when we allow it we can feel her love for us.  This only happens when our hearts are open.

 My prayer for each of you is that you have moments of joy and that you take the time to capture them in your memory.  It is those memories that will keep you going.

 God is good, all the time.

Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Mia, Molly, M.E., and always Catie

What makes one expression known for all ages like “life is a bowl of cherries” and others fade away as if never spoken?  My answer would be a shrug of my shoulders because the answer is unknown.  Some people live lives that are filled with every advantage and are grateful – not wanting to judge – my comment would be “PRAISE THE LORD”.  There are others who live lives filled with one challenge after another; they never seem to get a break.  Most of us live lives somewhere in the middle.  We have our good days and our bad days.

Looking at myself in the mirror this is where my reflection gazes back at me and we both see ourself in this middle.  Now does that mean that having buried our seven year old is seen by me as merely a challenge in my life?  At the time living through it probably not and now??  My answer on most days is hopefully.  Though on some days my answer would be, “it better be for my sake because this world has little time for a mourning mother” and that is the truth. 

Any attention that surrounded us during Catie’s illness was for Catie.  Any attention from anything that we have written hopefully is seen as a light shining on God.  Any attention that comes from us sharing Catie and her story – even two years later, hopefully – is seen as an attempt to bring awareness to this disease called Pediatric Cancer and rally others to join us in prayer and to do what is needed to further necessary research leading to cures.

Back in August of 2008 Catie was in radiation.  It seemed so easy for us.  The schedule was timely most days.  My internal mantra was “do what they tell you and everything will return to normal”.  My ability to survive was living in this bubble thinking it was possible to return to normal.   At this same time friends of ours were planning a fund raiser for Catie.  A dear friend sent me an e-mail to confirm the posters for the event.  The title of the poster read ROAD TO REMISSION.  Starring at the computer, thoughts jumbled, my breath slowed and my head began to sway as my fingers automatically dialed my phone.  Screaming into the phone “What do we expect to happen after treatment?  What is next for Catie?  When will we know if this is working?  What will we do if this doesn’t work?  Are we sure this is the best shot?  Did we research everything?”  These words are flying out of my mouth.  They are not heard or understood by me.  Finally all that can be heard is my love calmly saying “Sweetheart do you know what you are asking?  “What started all of this?  Where is Catie?  Is she alright?”  An e-mail came stating that they were planning a party and calling it the road to remission.  Is that what we want for Catie?  My love again calmly says, “Remission means the absence of cancer.”  My response is “Will she be cured?”  And again there is another calm response, “You realize that being cured of the cancer for Catie means a very specific thing.  It means being alive five years after the day she was diagnosed.  That is all.”  My screams are joined by tears, “Are you kidding me?  That is not what we want for Catie.  If that is the best that we can expect then why are we here?  Why did we leave you?” Calmly again the following words are heard saying, “There were no better options for Catie.  Nothing better is out there yet.  We are doing all that we can today to get her to tomorrow.  We are trading eighteen to get her to eight. Are you OK?”  “NO!”

This conversation and so many other conversations that I had between June 2008 and January 2009 are seared into my mind.  They are the mental scars that are a part of me.  Kevin carries his own as I am sure do each of the Fab 5.  In this conversation that Kevin and I had in August 2008 I had yet to understand that normal or a returning to normal was not possible.  I wanted all the blessings that I had before and like a spoiled child wanted to give none of them back.  I wanted Catie whole and healthy and home.  There was no second option.  Later in August I would sit in the Radiation waiting room and have a very similar conversation with another St. Jude mother.  While her daughter was ahead of Catie in treatment by two weeks, she was still seeking the return to normal.  Understanding this difference between where I was only weeks before and where I was now was began to create the new me – scarred but whole.

Catie's Collage

Now as we approach the second anniversary of Catie’s death many of the moments flood our memories and either tears fall or laughter erupts from deep within me.  We visited Catie’s grave last weekend.  We sprinkled conversation hearts and prayed.  The kids ate cookies and slid in the snow.  Kevin was quiet as he gave his little girl a chocolate rose.  I know that she is not there.  I know that she is with us and yet visible only in my faith.  She is also visible in the love that is still poured out to our family. 

This past Christmas another angel was added to our garden.  She is blue and beautiful.  When we returned from South Carolina she was standing next to our statue of the Blessed Mother.  We have moved the blue angel to the side garden so that she can look over Catie’s fairy garden that Mia maintains for all of us.  Isn’t that what we are supposed to do; maintain – to keep in existence or preserve – our faith, our families, our friendships, our marriages, our world for love of another? 

Somewhere over the last two years the scars have healed and I am whole and home.  I can hardly ever sit through Mass without tears falling – but they fell before Catie was sick.  I am not bitter or sad – though I loved my daughter dearly and long to be with her again.  There is joy in my life.  There is clarity in my life.  There is love in my life and I am grateful for all that share my life and our lives.  Someday, God willing, I will join Catie in heaven with the Lord and I hope to see you all there.  In the meantime I am here and there is much to do.  No time to want life to be different – accept it as it is and look for the blessings that do exist – they are there trust me.

Somehow throughout this entire experience of loving, losing and regaining both Catie and myself I have come to understand more fully where I am headed.  Knowing where you are going is  as important as the plan of how to get there.  God is in control.  He takes the lead and the only true suffering that I do is when I attempt to take control back. God has His own plans to bless me, love me and one day bring me home – if I choose.  Yet even knowing this there are days that I do not make the choice to follow God, to love those He placed in my life or to allow them to love me – why?  I was blessed by God to live with and exercise my free will.  Each day that I freely choose to live and love as God asks, is a better day for me. 

Those are the days like yesterday when we shared with listeners of Country Cares the importance and meaning of St. Jude even as we are remembering that they were not able to save Catie.  Days like today when we went to Central PA Fitness and thanked everyone who participated and gave to their fundraisers for St. Jude.  Tomorrow we will be at Trindle Bowl for the Bowl-a-Thon to celebrate and remember the life of Corey Somerville.  Corey is a member of the St. Jude family.  He battled his cancer at a young age – younger than Catie – and was cured and yet he died last year due to complications that resulted from the treatment he received.  There is still work to be done; successful protocols that find cures, cures that beat the cancer and leave the patient healthy and able to live out their dreams and wishes.

Cures cannot be found without research.  Research cannot be done without fundraising.  Fundraising cannot be done without willing and generous donors.  Prayer is needed at every step for everyone involved.  On January 25^th, the second anniversary of Catie’s birth to eternal life; join us in prayer for a cure to pediatric cancer and in thanksgiving for all who are engaged in finding a cure.  We will be at the 9am Mass at St. Joseph and then we will spend the day remembering our beloved Catie.

God is good, all the time,

Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Mia, Molly, M.E. and always Catie

St. Aloysius School in Pottstown, PA held a Dress Down Day for Catie’s Wish.  Catie will always be a part of this school where she attended Kindergarten.  They have collected over $4,000 and have said hundreds of prayers for Catie’s Kids.

Good evening Catie Team,

     May the peace and joy of Christmas be with each one of you.  As the world prepares for Christmas this week and traffic on roads and in shopping malls swells to its breaking point, I thought about all of you who have shown your willingness to follow this journey and offered a prayer for you and your loved ones.  Two years ago, we were home with Catie and preparing for her First Holy Communion both in South Carolina as well as in Mechanicsburg.  For those that have read back in this prayer journal or have been with us since then, you remember the travel adventures of flights and midnight driving to give Catie the celebration she wanted as she received Jesus in the Eucharist.  Saying “yes” to Catie was something we tried to do each day because that day was potentially all we had.  How well do we all do in saying “yes” to each other without the specter of impending death to motivate us.

     Many of us are willing to drop everything and do whatever is asked of us for family or friend in the case of an emergency.  We put our lives, our plans, our own desires on hold and selflessly do what we can for another.  We recognize in the immediacy of their request and the depth of their need an opportunity to reorder and reprioritize our lives in service to another.  We sprint in response to the need and put off until tomorrow whatever we can.  The consequence of our willingness to focus our resources of time and treasure is secondary to the desire to assist someone in need.  To me, that is the beauty of Christmas and the Nativity story.  Not that there was no room at the inn, but that one of the innkeepers offered a solution instead of merely saying “no” and shutting the door.  The answer “it may not be much, but it is all that I have” is the true meaning of sacrificial love.  Do what you can, give what you can, offer what you can, and God will take care of the rest.  He does not need us to take care of His children, we need Him to give us the opportunity so that we can be filled with the joy of giving.

     Christine and I were talking last night about how proud we were of Catie in the weeks following the suspension of treatment.  All she wanted to do was go home and go to school for as many days as she could, but she stayed at St. Jude until she had hand delivered every single Christmas present to each doctor, nurse, caregiver, patient, and friend that had meant so much to her.  She understood the joy that comes from giving what you have.  She gave everything and left this world a better place because of her presence (not presents) here. 

     This is a stressful time of year and there are a myriad of opportunities to become angry with the driver who just cut you off, the idiot (I mean wonderful person) who cut in front and grabbed the last parking space that you had waited ten minutes for, or that special someone who finished packing all of their gifts in their car, and instead of leaving so that you could park, re-locked their car and went back into the mall.  In addition, the stress that comes from the balancing act of dealing with family.  Those that came that you wish had stayed home, and the ones that did not come that you wish had.  The ones that failed to understand or appreciate the thought that went into their gift and the apparent lack of thought that seems to have gone into yours.  At the end of the day, that little baby who chose to leave the beauty and serenity of heaven and deal with the likes of us came here for ALL of us and accepts each of us and the gifts we bring without exception.  Think about Mary and Joseph.  Here they are with a new baby and no one shows up to celebrate with them except strangers.  And no one thinks to bring a gift except the Magi, and instead of Pampers or a nice outfit, they bring myrrh….to a baby shower.

Give what you can, be with all the people you can be with, accept them for who they are and love them anyway.  Travel safely.

God is good, all the time

Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Mia, Molly, M.E., and always Catie

For that last minute gift for the sports fan in your life, consider the book “99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Filling out Your Hoops Bracket” by Jared Trexler.  Just follow the link below.  With every purchase, Jared, (the newest member of Catie’s Team) will donate a portion of his profits to Catie’s Wish.  It is truly the gift that gives twice!!

 http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=1278469

The Central PA tour of lights continues through the first week of January and the shows are more spectacular than ever, so check out

www.patouroflights.com   and go see the shows!!

To all of our Catie followers,

Our hope is that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that you were able to count blessings and see God’s bounty in your life this past week.  We have had a wonderful week, as a family, and as ambassadors of all that Catie is and means to so many.  The week began last Saturday as St. Jude kicked off their Thanks and Giving campaign across the country with mall walks in 63 locations. 

Catie's Team members at Harrisburg Walk

Two of them had Catie Teams participating, Allentown, PA and Harrisburg, PA.  If you know of anyone who walked in one of these events and knows about Catie, please let us know! 

Participants and Volunteers at the Give Thanks. Walk.

The Harrisburg walk was the second annual and its success last year provided the impetus for the Allentown walk and others.   The Harrisburg walk surpassed last year’s event in participants, (more than 250), volunteers, (more than 50), and in donations, $32k and still counting.  Below is a link to a video of the walk.

http://animoto.com/play/YM2k8qF0wJbKk1ZhkHLKvQ?utm_content=escape_link

In addition to the walk, we also saw the first St. Jude commercial for this year’s campaign and it brought back the flood of memories from Catie’s commercial with Jason Taylor.  What a wonderful day that was.  Catie was still in treatment and feeling good and Christine and I had a terrific time spending an entire day with Catie and being so proud of who she was as she met and interacted with so many people.  Her smile just lit up any room she was in, just like her mom.  I am so blessed to be a husband and father, and being Catie’s dad is still an honor.  Take a look at the link below, it is a short video of the outtakes of the commercial, Catie is the beautiful little girl in pink.  It takes a minute for the video to load, but it is worth the wait.

http://bbitv.nextcom.no/video/Behind_the_Scenes_with_Jason_Taylor.htm

In many ways, that day held all of the elements of Catie’s Wish.  We stopped to pray at the Lourdes grotto in Emmittsburg, and Catie wrote out a prayer card asking God to make her better and we prayed for all of the kids battling cancer.  Then we did what we could to help St. Jude in their fight to treat and continue research.  Even then, we knew that eradicating pediatric cancer would take prayer and research.  Thank you for continuing this journey with us.

The rest of the week was a buildup to Thanksgiving and a great weekend.  Thanksgiving was spent with the Connollys and as usual, we did not arrive home until after midnight.  Friday saw us sharing Thanksgiving meal number two at our house which Christine and the kids have begun to decorate.  Saturday we journeyed back to our old neighborhood so that we could spend some time with the Toscanos and be close by on  Sunday for Gianna Marie Grimmer’s Baptism.

Max holding Gianna Marie Grimmer

What an honor to be invited and to be a part of such a wonderful sacrament.  Holding that sweet three week old smelling of Chrism brought back such terrific memories of holding Catie and the Fab 5 and of our Gianna who we were never able to hold.  What a blessing!  Thank you Jennifer and Will.  As I knelt next to Christine holding Gianna, Christine looked at me with a huge smile and a tear running down her cheek and said, “this is the happiest I have been in a long time.”  I knew just what she meant.

Isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about?  We should not be thankful just when things go our way because getting our way may not be the best thing for us.  Think about being a parent and giving your child everything they want, allowing them to have their way constantly.  You would never do it because the child would end up spoiled and selfish.  As parents, we teach our children that sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes the answer is no, and we hope to teach them that in both answers we love them.  God loves us unconditionally and that does not change or diminish when we don’t get our way.  Holding that sweet baby brought joy for the blessing that she is, sadness that two of our daughters are no longer with us, hope that we will see them again in heaven, and faith that God has us in the palm of His hands.  The trick is to be thankful for all of that, not just the parts we like.

Molly and Gianna Marie

And so, I pray that your Thanksgiving was all that it could be and that your blessings were too numerous to count, (even though you tried).  If you did not see all of the blessings, now is the perfect time to reflect on them as we prepare for Christmas.  See all of the blessings God has placed in your life.  Know without a doubt that He loves you, and then share that love with those in your life.  Hug the people you love because you can’t hug them once they are gone.  Tell your spouse you love them and thank them for all they do, and let your kids know that you are proud of them even if they drive you crazy.  Know that we are praying for you and know that Catie climbs onto God’s lap and whispers your name to Him daily. 

God is good, all the time,

Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Mia, Molly, M.E., and always Catie

PS – The Central Pennsylvania Tour of Lights begins this Saturday, December 4^th at 6pm and runs each night in six Central PA locations until January 8^th.  Please visit www.duszakfamilylights.com for the addresses of the light shows.  Proceeds from the shows benefit St. Jude and the Catie’s Wish Foundation.  Catie saw the show two years ago and was thrilled, and saw it from heaven last year.  This year’s show is bigger and brighter than ever and clearly visible from Catie’s viewpoint.  Thank you Ron!!

www.givethankswalk.org

http://animoto.com/play/YM2k8qF0wJbKk1ZhkHLKvQ?utm_content=escape_link

St. Francis School in Springfield, PA held their third annual Dress Down Day for Catie’s Wish.  They have collected over $2,000 and have said hundreds of prayers for Catie’s Kids.