National Treasures

COLUMBUS, OHIO - So while God was handing out the good stuff to each person, I decided to go back for seconds to the ‘dorky history fanatic’line. The kids you see pictured here were a bit more judicious and went to the ‘beautiful talented smart compassionate’ line. They are all of these things, of course, but what I saw shining through this weekend was the ‘compassionate’ part. These are people who deserve to be admired (daily!) by all of us. Not because they can do more things on ice with knives on their boots than you and I can do in orthopedic shoes on dry pavement, no, not just that. Because they each decided to spend a few days dedicating themselves to raising funds for breast cancer research. The faces you are looking at will be very familiar to you soon, if they aren’t already. The next Olympic games will be a showcase for some of them, and I pray they all achieve their dreams. They stopped their crazy busy schedules to come to Carolyn Bongiorno’s “Skate For Hope” and give everyone who attended a reason to be in AWE. They did it for grandmas with breast cancer, for moms and moms of friends, for coaches, for mentors (hyperlink to the Dorothy Hamill post on the word ‘mentors’), the list is endless. They have all been touched, and they decided to do something about it with their staggering talents. THANK YOU Emily, Rockne & Keauna, Rachel, Evan & Emily, Ben & Brooke and Ryan (please be careful with those flips, man o man) for all that you do, for all you have done, and for all that you will be. Special thanks to Amy – you are the best substitute grandma I know. :) You truly are our National Treasures.