karaoke for the kure – oh it’s coming soon

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So last year with Because of Ezra we did a brilliantly fun event in Beverly Hills – live band karaoke. Our amazing team raised over $110,000 toward a cure for neuroblastoma, all in Ezra’s name. It was such an incredible thing to be a part of – so this year we’re doing it in Los Angeles AND Tampa!

Tickets are available at becauseofezra.org/k – you can easily pay online (or by check if that’s how you roll). We also do still have some sponsorship opportunities open for the Tampa event. Please invite some friends, get your tickets, and support a cure. I promise you’re going to have a fun evening.

You don’t have to sing, but you can bet it’s going to be a fun party, at the Ritz in Tampa (Ybor City) and the Troubadour in West Hollywood. Tickets are $75-100, and include some food, karaoke with a live band (all the way from Seattle!) backing you up, open bar, and a general all around good time. It all benefits Because of Ezra – you’re helping us to keep fighting neuroblastoma in Ezra’s name.

Robyn and I are excited to see everyone out. In the past year we’ve spent a lot of time meeting the kids and families who are actually being treated on the trials you’re helping to fund through Because of Ezra, and it breaks our hearts and gives us intense joy all at the same time. Seriously – this is making a difference. The research and forward motion in treating neuroblastoma just since Ezra died in 2010 is inspiring. We are so proud to be a part of that, remembering Ezra always and helping to stop this from happening more.

Thanks, see you all at the events!

our family of six

A couple years ago I wrote a post here called our family of five, sharing a bit about how death makes simple questions like “how many kids do you have?” difficult – or at the very least, strange. Our life is anything but normal.

We’ve got an exciting announcement – we’re adopting from foster care! Our great friend Jesse directs the Heart Gallery here in the Tampa Bay area, and for years we’ve known if we ever adopted it’d be through foster care, largely because of Jesse and her organization’s work. There are hundreds of children in Tampa at any given time who have no families, no homes to go to, and little hope. We know we can provide a home, hope, and be loving parents to some amazing child[ren!?] who’s experienced some loss in life.

There’s a 10 week class to be certified to adopt, which we’ve completed (with a couple make-up classes to finish in a few weeks). (By the way, this post was about one of those classes). From there, we meet with some people who’ve been working with us in the whole process and will help “match” us with a kid (or sibling group!) who they think goes well with our family. There’s some discussion, and we move forward either with the adoption process or the continuing search. We could have a new addition to our family for the holidays, or it could be a year.

Adoption will be bringing a burst of newness into our life, and we expect it will be much like many of the things we’ve been through in the past few years. A cocktail of 1 part difficulty, 1 part joy, and 2 parts work. We are so excited to begin this next chapter in our life! Out of the overflow of our hearts, we choose to help – to give.

It’s been interesting in these 10 weeks of classes to hear details on the foster care system, and how the people involved in their care talk about these children. They stress over and again – first and foremost these kids have felt loss. They’ve been ripped from their families, often in tragic situations. They’ve seen the lives they thought they’d have torn to shreds. They’ve wondered if they’ll ever feel their family is complete again. We’ve felt those things, too.

I encourage anyone who’s interested in knowing more about these children’s lives (and what’s coming in ours) to read a book called Three Little Words,  by Ashley Rhodes-Courter. Ashley lived in foster care here in the Tampa bay area. She describes foster care, how she felt about her birth and adopted families, and how things had to change in foster care. It’s a brilliant read, and was a New York Times best seller.

Losing two children before your thirtieth birthday changes the way you think about everything. I live in this pinball machine where I bounce around from sadness to joy to a desire for adventure to a need to feel to a deep need to help people. We can’t change what people have been through, but we can change whether they’re on their own in it.

We can change the way someone will experience it tomorrow.

A lot is going on in our lives. This is an intense year, and while we are busier than ever, we welcome the growth and opportunities. Robyn is an incredible woman, and I fall more in love with her every time I am with her. I am so proud of her. Charley is learning to walk, eat, and talk, slowly but deliberately and with huge effort. I am so proud of him.

We’re always surrounded by hurt, laughter, tears, and hope.