One blog post at a time…

Last Monday I started practicing for my goal to finish the half marathon in my hometown Cologne on September 14th. Today I had my first endurance run of 90 minutes at a slow pace. It felt great to be outside, run through the woods, hear birds singing and rabbits running around all over. During practice I kept thinking of Carmen, Team White and how their story had such a big impact on the way I see (my) life. I am determined to run and to finish the half marathon in honor of that story – in honor of Carmen and Team White. And I am determined to reach my goal of raising 1975 Euro for the DKMS – a German non-profit organization that recruits bone marrow donors and supports the fight against blood cancer. In case you wonder: I came up with the number 1975 because I didn’t want a round number and I thought that the year I was born in is a good number. I will write more about the fundraiser and the progress of my training in future posts. But today it is important to me to talk about something else.

After my run this morning, a shower and some breakfast I got very grumpy, angry and sad all of a sudden – for no obvious reason. I couldn’t really think clearly anymore and couldn’t talk to my wife. I told her that I needed some time for myself, grabbed my iPad, went to our bedroom and continued reading „The Field“ by Lynn McTaggert. It is a fascinating book about research on how we are connected to everything. While reading, my thoughts kept going back to Carmen and her family. Somehow it seems that they are getting more and more a part of my life. I never met Carmen (while she was still with us), I only met Heather twice, her husband Chris, son Trevor and dog Roxy only once. Nonetheless: So many miraculous things have happened since then and are still happening today. I will blog more about these events in the future.

Anyways, while still in this grumpy and sad mood I felt the strong urge to re-read Carmen’s story. The story is online on a blog  Heather and Chris had started the day after Carmen was diagnosed with ALL Leukemia. That was on May 26th 2011. Today is May 25th 2014: What I didn’t know until today is that exactly three years ago on the same date, Carmen wasn’t feeling good. Heather wrote about that day in this article. She rushed Carmen into a hospital that night. And that is when their story began. Same date, three years later I get somehow pulled back to re-read Carmen’s story and learn about this. Some might say that the life-changing and tragic day back then for the White family and my – compared to that – rather (very, VERY) irrelevant episode of just feeling sad is at best a coincidence. But to me it is yet one more beautiful synchronicity of two events that for some reason and maybe for some higher purpose are interrelated – it made me focus on Carmen’s story from yet another perspective.

It is really hard for me to put into words and into a linear sequence all the things, events and experiences I had so far. Because of the interrelatedness of what happened, our regular perceptions of space and time, cause an effect, don’t seem to work anymore. In their very first blog post, entitled „One day at a time„, Chris wrote how Heather and he felt it was important to start a blog to keep  friends and family posted. Three years later (and thanks to that blog and my visit to the US) Heather an I had a chance meeting. The circumstances of that very first encounter is yet another very special story  I will share sometime in the future.

Today it is important to me to start this blog, it is time for me to write about Carmen’s story and how it affected – and still affects – my life and that of other people. To me it is a story so huge, so magnificent, wonderful, miraculous and full of divine love that I believe it should be told and have it reach as many people as possible. Carmen’s story already reached hundreds or probably thousands of people and I know that this is exactly what she wanted. But to be honest, although the idea of writing about Carmen’s story and getting active in supporting the fight against blood cancer was there for over 1,5 years, I just didn’t know how and where to start. Or maybe it was my fear to do so publicly on a blog. But well, here I go. This is the start… „One blog post at a time.“