Lucas James Stisher: March for Babies!

Monday, May 17, 2010

March for Babies!

Our Little Ambassador!

It was an honor for Lucas to be the March of Dimes Ambassador for Montgomery County this year. I was asked to share his story at the county kickoff meeting to corporate sponsors and family teams, and to speak at the Deloitte and Touche charity day. Its always an emotional story for me to tell, recounting his rocky beginning.

But the best was kicking off the morning walk. It is always an emotional time. There was no escaping the tears, and the passion I feel about the work of the March of Dimes. When I was compiling my thoughts for the speech, I recalled that although Lucas’ birth was the most frightening time of my life, he was born during the most beautiful week of the cherry blossoms, where they explode with color along the Tidal Basin. So every year, his birthday, the walk, and the cherry blossoms--all coincide. This will always be a significant beautiful representation for us every year. That week we went out and bought a picture of a cherry blossoms in bloom and hung it in Lucas’ room.

Another very special part of the walk... Abby told us the night before that she would also like to speak. We encouraged her to do so, of course, were also worried the thousands of people may be intimidating. Bran explained to her there would be a lot of people, and welcomed her to change her mind if she didn’t want to once we got there. But she didn’t waiver… showing so much maturity beyond her age of 9, she took the microphone from me and told everyone how much she loved her little brother, she thanked the March of Dimes for saving him, and for all the other babies. There wasn’t a dry eye on that field. I speak for all of us in how proud we were of her, but especially Bran.

We then got to hold the banner, and lead the walkers down the street. We were so happy to be joined by our families and friends that came out to support us, and for the money we raised!

Team Lucas!