Brian's Phirst Blog: #Be a Grown Up

When I came home from work today my three year old son Lincoln heard me outside and ran to the door yelling "Daddy's home, Daddy's home!" Since it was my daughter Emma's first day of school, and he knew that big boys and girls get to go to school, he said to me, "Dad, I want to ask you a question. Dad, what do you want to be when you grow up"? I paused for a second and tried to be as serious as I could as I looked at him with deep thought behind my eyes and speaking softly said, "I would like to be just like you Lincoln." He started giggling and then I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said "I want to be Iron Man!"

You hear kids say things all the time like "I want to be a veterinarian" or "I want to play major league baseball" but you know that it is usually wishful thinking at the time and our dreams change into the reality of life as we know it now. What do you think would happen though if everyone became what they wanted to be as a child? Would the world be a better place because all boys could hit home runs and all of the animals of the world were healthy and not endangered from being extinct? I guess we will never know because of many things that change in us in our younger years.

Right now there are thousands of children with dreams that are fading with the dawn of each new day because of pediatric cancer, the #1 disease that steals children's futures. Times are hard enough for children that are not hanging on to life and Growing Up now feels too far out of reach for so many who have no chance for a cure. I wonder what would happen if all of the children of the world got together and started talking about why they were not going to be able to Grow Up like most kids.

Do you think that they would say that they couldn't grow up because they didn't have any hair?

Would they talk about all the weight they gained because of all of the steroids that had to take that made them hungry everyday?

Would they say that because they are sick, there would be no hope for helping animals?

Its hard for adults themselves to think about seeing the future of these young kids when all they can imagine is the pain they are going through. Adults know that being a Grown Up is not always easy and sometimes very painful itself, but the one thing you would never hear from a child is that all of the Grown Ups never did anything to make my dreams come true. If that is the case, is that the reality? Are we as Grown Ups so focused on still trying to Grow Up ourselves that we don't think about those who have yet to grow into anything at all? Have you given all of your dreams away to a self inflicted nightmare that leaves no room for you to help a child dealing with a life threatening disease? Is your heart so bound up that you can't even look for a moment into the eyes of a child losing their future to cancer? Its time to take a deep hard look inside and listen to your heart as it continues to beat and hear the voices and see faces of children who could still have a future because you cared. Its time to Be a Grown Up and stop dreaming because being responsible is your Reality. Listen to their Voices, see their Faces as you watch this. (Thank you David Cook for this Song)