Goosebumps

During the last months, other events have affected our handling of Drew's illness and death. The joys of a first grandchild and the excitement of another on the way have been great spirit-boosters. The Stanley Cup last night gave us a reason to cheer. Seeing so many family and friends and reading the hundreds of cards and emails gave us hope and pride. And then there's the World Cup...

We had first talked about going to Germany this year. After round one of chemo, we discussed at least taking time off to really enjoy watching it with Drew and our friends and teammates. After round two and the transplant, we discussed watching it from the bone marrow clinic, and wondering if we would be the only ones cheering.

We knew that, whatever venue, we would experience both excitement and that pang of what might have been. Like thousands of others watching, Drew would be one of those kids thinking about his dreams of being there and wearing the US jersey and how, with a little more luck or work or different decisions, this would have been his year. We watched Saturday with that thought, wondering how much different life would be if he were in the same place of Brian McBride, making a bit higher jump and heading the ball into the goal (versus over the crossbar), breaking the eventual 1-1 tie against Italy.

Yesterday, we found Drew's 1994 assignment book from the fifth grade. One assignment was to write your obituary. He attacked this assignment aggressively, with a lengthy description of a glorious life of sports, business, a home in Paris, wife and kids, and several references to charitable giving to share his riches with others.

Of course, at age 11, he envisioned he would make his money in sports. We could hardly read any further, though, when he listed his future moment of fame as "scoring the winning goal in the World Cup, beating Italy 2-1".

Goosebumps.