Serendipity

you know how sometimes things just come together in a way that feels like they are meant to be?
It happened to me this week. The events are as follows:
Carrie Meakin and i are about to launch a triathlon team/coaching business called Mercury Rising Triathlon. Things have all been coming together very nicely so far, with the help of Michael and Carlos, our team manager and webguy.
Michael mentioned that it might be a good idea if we got involved with a charity for 2010.
I liked this idea but it felt very impersonal, if i was going to raise money for charity, I wanted to feel connected to the charity somehow. I wanted it to mean something.
At a meeting a couple days ago, Michael talked about the sponsors we will be working with and we tossed around a few ideas about having an event/fundraiser with the team. Carrie and I loved the idea of being involved in the community in this way, but the question was, "What charity?"
We found ourselves in the unusual situation of wanting to hold a charity event without a charity!
On the way home Carrie said to me, 'I like this idea, but it would be nice if we could find someone to organize it.'
The next day:
My sister mentioned that she had done a hair cut for Alyson.
Alyson is an old friend from elementary school.
In May 2009, Alyson was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
I sent a note to Alyson hoping we could do coffee.
I remembered that Alyson has a blog that i enjoyed reading, so I logged on and read her latest entry. I also remembered that Alyson was an intelligent, vibrant and motivating person. Then I read that Alyson was getting into public speaking and the light bulb went on.
Alyson! Brain Cancer Research!
A cause, a charity, a speaker, all in one.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Luckily, Alyson also liked the plan and as a bonus, she comes with her own organizer.
So there it is.
Of course the details of this charity event are yet to be decided, but i feel lucky to be a part of what might happen.

I highly recommend Alyson's blog: www.alysonwoloshyn.com

Here is an except from an entry about fear that I enjoyed. I find that much of her writing speaks to the athlete in me, the goal setter, the girl who knows she can but is sometimes afraid of becoming a champion;


Yet there are still some fears that silence both the motivator and the cynic. I have a lot of new thoughts that come up that revolve around my mortality and none of my voices know quite how to handle these yet. Most of the time I am confident my treatment will be successful and my prognosis will improve but there are moments where the severity of my diagnosis sets in. I will remember how my grandfather, who died of a Grade III Astrocytoma, so quickly deteriorated and how my mom and Aunt Carol had to take care of him during his final months. I remember the woman who was across from me after my surgery and how she could not communicate with her family or nurses what she needed, when she needed it although I knew that she still had good mental capacity to know what it was that she wanted. I remember what that doctors and statistics have told me that a good survivor rate is 10 – 15 years – which would make me 47 at the tail end of the curve. With these thoughts there is no inner monologue; just a scary movie playing in my head where the heroine knows that the killer is coming for her, she just doesn’t know when or how. She races through the field in a desperate attempt to save herself, but she knows that the inevitable is coming. Typically at this point in a movie I would change the channel for a moment, let the inevitable happen then come back for the next scene, however with the movie inside my head I can’t seem to find the remote. I play over the images of what is coming and all I can do is hide my head in the pillow to try and avoid my fear of dying.