{"id":3334,"date":"2015-08-26T13:36:26","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T18:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=3334"},"modified":"2015-08-26T16:52:36","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T21:52:36","slug":"hope-beads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=3334","title":{"rendered":"“Hope Beads”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UPS man came today. \u00a0Paxton announced his arrival in his usual exuberant fashion.<\/p>\n

The UPS man kept a respectful distance. \u00a0Funny, that!<\/p>\n

It was a padded envelope and it was for me! \u00a0I love getting stuff (as long as it’s not bills) in the mail.<\/p>\n

I opened the envelope. \u00a0Inside of it, was a smaller padded envelope. \u00a0It had Aiden’s name on it! \u00a0Aiden, if you recall, is my cute as a button little IRun4 buddy.<\/p>\n

I opened the smaller envelope and a long string of colorful beads slid out along with a small note. \u00a0The note read:<\/p>\n

Mel,<\/p>\n

I am sending you my hope beads to help you with your big race. \u00a0Each bead represents a stay, procedure, med, blood draw, etc, that I have had while in the hospital.<\/p>\n

Love, Aiden<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I sat down. \u00a0Hard. \u00a0I was stunned. \u00a0Then I started to cry.<\/p>\n

This was an incredibly touching, generous,\u00a0special, meaningful, and personal gift! \u00a0I felt very unworthy of something so personal.<\/p>\n

I may run for this kid, but Aiden is my hero. \u00a0Seriously!<\/p>\n

He’ll turn 4 years old the day before the Berlin Marathon. \u00a0To think that he accumulated that amazing string of beads in 4 short years says a lot to the fight and tenacity he has in him to live. To succeed! \u00a0And to the support and love of his parents.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, I’m going to run my heart out in Berlin for Aiden. \u00a0I will do my best to be deserving of this gift.<\/p>\n

#IRun4Aiden<\/p>\n

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The UPS man came today. \u00a0Paxton announced his arrival in his usual exuberant fashion. The UPS man kept a respectful distance. \u00a0Funny, that! It was a padded envelope and it was for me! \u00a0I love getting stuff (as long as it’s not bills) in the mail. I opened the envelope. \u00a0Inside of it, was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,6,8,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3334"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3365,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions\/3365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}