Random Meeting

 

 

 

The other day, Marco and I were shopping for flowers at a local nursery. I was wearing my Madox’s Warriors hooded zip up sweater, where it solely says Madox’s Warriors, cure DIPG on the back. A gentleman near us noticed it, “excuse me? I see your sweater. Madox’s Warriors! We know about Madox and his fight.” After speaking with him for a short while he asked ” were you Madox’s parents?” My heart ached at the were word. As humans, we use past tense when someone has died. I try to never us past tense when speaking about Madox.  I know he didn’t mean anything hurtful by it, but I responded as I always do “yes, we are Madox’s parents.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

He and his wife gave us their condolences and shared with us how they came to follow our story. What I appreciated most was that they both gave us their sympathy of Madox’s passing. May people either pretend nothing happened, or think it has been an X number of years so not to say anything about Madox. Both hurts our hearts, as it tells us Madox didn’t matter. It really lifted my spirits to hear them talk to us about Madox and the significant impact on us and our loss. They didn’t understand from experience, but they tried to which that alone touched us deeply. Hearing his name. Speaking of his life. Acknowledging his fight and our days without him. It means so much to us, even if it makes us sad for a short time. It tells us we are not fighting alone and not doing what we do in vain. People who know Madox through our charity and our events have helped us realize we are reaching out and making a difference with our awareness.

 

 

 

So to Rick and Grace: Thank you for taking the time out of your shopping to approach us. We truly appreciate that you spoke to us about Madox and his fight. You really made our day and added a little skip in my step for the rest of that day. So thank you.