This was on CNN yesterday, and I saw it a couple days ago, and I don’t know why I feel compelled to share what’s almost a cliche with a sports team/players “adopting” or otherwise bringing a small amount of joy into a terminally ill little kid’s life, but…I love stuff like this.
I certainly had something in my eye as a parent of boys not much older than him, with the knowledge that something like brain cancer can get anyone, anytime.
That was beautiful. Just beautiful.
I’ll never get tired of stuff like this.
It’s almost impossible to overstate what joy that brings to a little girl or boy that age. I was seven once, and believe me, Jack is STILL talking about it, and will be for months to come. For all those people to come together to do that to let a kid have his moment is an example of human kindness and generosity in a world that’s often way short of that sort of thing.
I love how the QB is like “no, THIS way!” to him and the offensive lineman (or maybe the fullback) waves him over to guide him and from there its nothing but little Jack trucking towards the endzone.
However long this kid lives, I am certain he will carry this memory with him forever. I cry watching it because it sounds like he most certainly will die at some point soon, and I imagine myself as the parent of this child, witnessing what might be one of his last moments of happiness before he gives in to the battle against brain cancer.
At the very least its a good reminder of not only how fragile life can be, but how often we forget that it is and how that fragility can strike one of us or someone close to us with nefarious rapidity.
I woulda loved to see some hard hitting backup strong safety with something to prove just level the kid and then taunt him with a Ray Lewis dance. I say that because If I admit to tearing up a little and starting to think about the possibility of losing one of my girls to cancer which would be devastating beyond belief, people might think I’m not just some internet asshole, and we can’t have that.
Sad news:
Kylie Dockter, executive director of the Team Jack Foundation, said Hoffman died of brain cancer early Wednesday at his home in Atkinson, Nebraska. Medical tests in October confirmed new and more aggressive tumors had developed.
Hoffman initially was diagnosed in 2011, and his parents, Andy and Bri Hoffman, were the driving force behind the Team Jack Foundation, which supports pediatric brain cancer research.