I love September for a lot of reasons. Mainly it comes after August, which is by far my least favorite month—too damn hot! But I love that September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. It’s such a good reminder of Hi Little One’s mission (flipping cancer the bird through design), and it’s a fun and meaningful way to reach out to people who are fighting the good fight or honoring those who did.
This year, we shipped a lot of Going Gold shirts out all over the country, but one story hit pretty close to home and made me especially proud of our little company’s mission.
Edward Johnson has had a sweet spot in my family’s heart since he entered this world very, very eagerly at 25 weeks. The son of two of my close friends from college, Eddie came into this world fighting for his life. After 100 days in the NICU he made his way home to get onto the fun parts of living.
Just after his first birthday, however, Eddie was diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma (a rare pediatric eye cancer), and started on his second fight for his life. It's a fight that he’s made incredible progress on, but one that he continues to this day—well into his extremely active, tool-time fixing, little-sister-loving, booby-trap-setting 5th year of life. His parents, Katie & MJ, keep an honest, heartwarming and at times heart wrenching blog of Eddie’s journey. It’s worth checking out if you’re ever looking to be reassured that you have a pulse and be reminded of what’s important in your day to day. Hint: it’s the people around you and your time on this earth.
Katie & MJ honor Childhood Cancer Awareness Month every year, usually with a donation to one of the organizations responsible for keeping their little man alive. This year, they took a different approach and bought a plethora of Going Gold shirts and passed them out to family, friends, neighbors as thank you’s for supporting their family through this journey. Katie mentioned how much fun Eddie is having giving the shirts out, "Can you believe it mom? Everyone is going gold for me!"
I have loved watching the pictures flood my Facebook feed of everyone coming out to support sweet Eddie! This is exactly what we hoped these shirts would do. I want everyday to be Eddie day.
Yes, I choked up more than once while writing and re-reading this post. It’s ok if you did too.
