10 Birthdays

For the 10th time, Shannon is not here on this earth with us to celebrate her birthday. She would be 23 today. A decade of missed celebrations.

I miss her spunk and her spirit. I miss her laugh and her smile.

I wish I could know her as a young adult, finding her way in this world. 

I see her friends and classmates graduating college, getting married, even having babies. Just imagine...

Time doesn't heal this wound, and the grief doesn't end. 

But the loss of Shannon prompts us to go forth and expand our worlds to ease the pain of the incredible loss. We grow with our grief... and because of it...

We surround ourselves with those who say her name and allow us to share our memories. We work to spread her spirit and do some good in her memory.

We loved her for the 13 years we had her here with us, and we've loved her every day in the 10 years since.

Happy birthday, Shannon. 

May 31, 2021

 Happy Memorial Day to all. This weekend always serves as a gateway to summer here in MN. The weather is improving, the school year is ending, and it's time for summer plans.

This summer will be different for Dan and I as Erin won't be spending the summer at home. She is staying in Philadelphia and working her co-op job through the summer months. That was always the plan for this end of her junior year, but it is strange to make summer travel plans without her. 

I know it's all a part of the process, but I am still learning to think of her life and plans as separate from ours. 

Last month, Dan and I took our first vacation without Erin when we headed to the Oregon coast to play golf at Bandon Dunes. If you are not a golfer, you've probably never heard of it. But if you are a golfer, this place is a must see. Think of it as golfing links style courses like you would play in Scotland or Ireland, but on the U.S. pacific coast. I hope for more of these adventures with Dan in the years to come.

Dan and I spent the first part of Memorial Weekend up at Lake Hubert. We did a clean up weekend with some of Dan's siblings. Despite the time I spent cleaning mouse droppings out of kitchen drawers, it was fun!

I think the 15 months of pandemic isolation has reminded us all how much we need in-person human interaction. It feels so good to connect without the fear about a virus that has been the underpinning of all interactions in the last year. We gathered as fully vaccinated people (thank you, science!) and the conversation and laughter filled my soul.

June is here, and I am dreaming of more travel. My goal is to leave Rochester at least once every month for the rest of the year. I've already got June travel plans, so I'm off to a good start. 

We will get back to Lake Hubert in August. Hopefully, Erin can sneak away from her job for a long weekend and join us for a few days. She's never missed a summer up there in her life and doesn't want to start now.

I'm feeling more hopeful and optimistic than I have in the past year. Getting out and seeing the world and its beauty - be it a golf course or a lake - is revitalizing. More of that, please, in the months ahead.

April 15, 2021

Today marks 10 years since diagnosis day. The day a neurologist told us that Shannon had an inoperable, incurable brain tumor. The day Dan and I tried to make sense of the fact our first baby was going to die before going to high school, and there was nothing we could do about it. 

 

A friend asked me if it seems longer or shorter than 10 years… I think it’s a little bit of both. Time is flying by, and yet, it’s been so long since I saw her.

 

As I write this, I am sitting at O’Hare airport, listening to our blog playlist and waiting for a plane to Philadelphia. I am fully vaccinated and ready to see Erin for the first time since Christmas. 

 

I did an interview this week with an expert about brain tumors. 10 years ago, when we sat in that neurologist’s office, could I have imagined that I’d work for the Mayo Clinic? No. Through my work, I’ve had the privilege to cross paths with many people who were a part of Shannon’s care. My job at Mayo Clinic is a gift that came from Shannon. Writing about our journey here on this blog led to opportunities to write for Mayo Clinic. I don’t ever forget that. 

 

I am so excited to see Erin. Last week for the first time in her life, I wasn’t with her on her birthday. She seemed fine with it… I’m the one who felt bad . 10 years ago, did I imagine that Erin would go to school 1,000 miles away, make a new life with new friends, and be on a path to a career in medicine? No. Erin charting her own course and choosing health care as a career is a result of Shannon’s journey, too. Erin learned at age 10 that time is short and you should live life out loud while you are able.

 

Dan is home taking care of pets this weekend, so we are apart on this diagnosis day, although he did get out of bed to take me to the airport at 5am this morning. Our marriage has not only survived the loss of a child, but we’ve grown closer and we’re ready to grow old together. (Some might say that’s well underway…)

 

We reflect on the people that have come in and out of our lives. We lost some connections – those who just didn’t know what to say to us or couldn’t look us in the eye, afraid of who we now were. 

 

But we gained so much more. Those people who stood up those 10 years ago and said, “We are here” and then never left. And those who joined us on this journey at various points along the way, drawn in by Shannon, or Erin, or the story we shared. We are grateful for all these people who allow us to say Shannon’s name and listen to our stories. 

 

If you ever know someone who loses a child, please say their name. 

 

So, 10 years on from the day everything changed, we’re OK. We’re even happy. We get to watch Erin grow up which is fun and amazing. And yet, we can’t help but wonder, what would Shannon be like now? We see her friends graduating from college, starting careers, getting married. It will always hurt that Shannon didn’t get to grow up and we didn’t get to experience those things with her. 

 

I mourn the things I thought would be that never will, but I am still grateful for the things that are.

 

So, today, I will hug my daughter for the first time in 4 months and I will hear about her busy life and her goals and dreams and that will be enough. It is what we have, and it is more than enough. 

 

All At Once from Jack Johnson just shuffled up on my playlist…

 

There’s a world we’ve never seen

There’s still hope between the dreams

The weight of it all could blow away with a breeze

If you’re waiting on the wind, don’t forget to breathe

Cause as the darkness gets deeper, we’ll sink and so we reach for love

At least something we could hold

But I’ll reach to you from where time just can’t go…

A pandemic milestone

 This past week marked one year since COVID-19 landed in the U.S. and changed everything. 

A year ago, we were trying to get Erin home from Philadelphia, never imagining that she would spend 5 months in our basement doing online college, and that she'd still be going to school online 12 months later.

A year ago, the team of coworkers I worked most closely with were let go, and within weeks, myself and others were notified that we would be furloughed throughout the spring and summer months. 

A year ago, Dan's company pulled the sales guys off the road and they still haven't returned to regular travel. 

A year ago, we were hoping that we could shelter in place for a few weeks and stop the spread of the virus. Now 12 long months later, we are finally feeling some hope that life will be improving in the near future.

The past year has been filled with loss for sure. But our losses of normalcy are small, compared with the losses suffered by so many others. While Erin contracted COVID, she weathered it well and is now lucky enough to be fully vaccinated. Dan and I have jobs that allow us to work from home, so we have avoided the virus and now our vaccinations are underway. Both sets of parents - one in their 70s and one in their 90s - have stayed healthy. We are lucky. 

With vaccinations underway and increasing rapidly across the U.S., it feels OK to be cautiously optimistic.

This week, Erin is finishing up a full year of online school. Not how college is meant to be, but she has persevered and is finishing her junior year coursework this week. She will spend the next 6 months doing her co-op experience, working in a brain injury clinic in Philadelphia as a diagnostic tech. One of the draws of Drexel was that co-op is built into the plan of study for all students. Erin is ready for the change of pace. 

While so many plans and events were canceled this past year, we continued the work of our foundation and gave out scholarships to four deserving winners again in 2021. 

Abby Wick, Katherine Thorvilson, Josh Hanson and Hayden Jones will carry on Shannon's spirit as the latest scholarship recipients. We're glad to have them on our team.

Decades from now when we look back at these pictures, I wonder what we will think about the masks on our faces. I certainly hope next year is different.

So, on the one year anniversary of the pandemic, I'm taking a moment to be thankful. We stayed healthy. Erin stayed on track. Dan and I stayed employed. Many others did not. 

Having hope feels good. I can't wait to see my family and friends and I can't wait to travel. Here's to mass vaccinations and turning the dial back slowly towards normalcy... 

Applications and Endurance

 Man, it’s been forever since I blogged.  I woke up early to read through scholarship apps.  We will select the Shannon Scholars this weekend when we hold our board of directors meeting.  The meeting will be held virtually, of course.  

We are holding my annual company meetings virtually too.  I would be in Florida for those - probably smoking a cigar and looking at the Atlantic Ocean with a bunch of other sales guys.  But it ain’t so bad.

Our company was one of the first to pull its people out of the field when the pandemic began to spread.  We will probably also be one of the last to go back out.  Kudos to WEX Inc.  I still love my job.  I’m 57 but I’ll keep grinding as long as they will let me.  I am fulfilled doing deals.  I like helping companies and the people that do the work in those companies.

I know this has been a challenging time in our world.  Time to reach back into the reserves of mental wellness and persist.  We are almost there.  Plus it’s winter-as-heck up here in MN.  What else you going to do?

Which brings me back to the apps.  There are some outstanding young people coming up in this world.  As adults we feel so bad for them - they are getting screwed out of many of the traditional high school experiences - but it ain’t so bad.  In this small scale of 13 or so Rochester young adults,  the messages give me great hope.  These kids get it.

Time for another cup of Dunn Bros grind.  Cozy by the fire 🔥.  Reading stories from kids that never knew Shannon O’Hara but carry her spirit in the way they go about things.  That’s pretty cool.

The world we are living in right now is an us not a me.  It ain’t so bad.

Christmas 2020.

 My parents have been encouraging me to blog since I was about 12. What better time than Christmas 2020 to finally listen to them? :) Christmas this year is weird, a holiday typically centered around sharing and catching up with family, now stripped to immediate families if you’re lucky. I am fortunate to be able to spend a few weeks at home with my parents, who are doing the best they can through these crazy times. BTW… “fortunate” is a relative term because I am pretty sure it was -2 yesterday…. Also, what 19-year-old LIKEs living in their parent’s basement? I digress….

Christmas has never been an easy holiday for us, it is filled with our memories of our Shannon sick, and it can often be a reminder of what we’ve lost  My dad and I shared a moment of relief this year discussing not having to tiptoe around small talk on Christmas. Yesterday, on Christmas Eve, in between episodes of our current binge-watch, I convinced my mom to watch some of our old home videos with me. Shannon’s spirit is bright even when she was four years old, pushing her little sister around. We laughed at how dorky my parents were in their thirties and the constant sibling rivalry between Shannon and me. It is sometimes hard to watch but good to remember :) 

It’s always been a complicated balance for me, missing Shannon, but I also understand that

I am largely who I am today because we lost her. I am in my junior year of college now,

enjoying my studies in Health Sciences. I have clicked off over 150 college credits at age

19 living in Philadelphia, and I will be applying to PA schools in the spring. I have been talking about going into medicine since my sister was sick, and it is quite hard to believe that I am closer to that career than I have ever been. Shannon is the reason for my drive, motivation, compassion, and why I want to be the kind of provider I want to be. I’d like to think she would be proud.

After a few days of grumbling about how cold it is outside, my parents convinced me to go on a walk with them to the golf course. Although I’m often skeptical of our “spiritual” experiences, there was no denying our guardian angel was present when not one, but 2, bald eagles flew over my mom, dad, and me on Christmas Day.

In the most isolated year of all time, I find myself having gratitude for the humanity around me. I’ve been lucky enough to surround myself with people I can laugh, cry with, and experience everything that this crazy year has thrown at us together. Going into 2021, I encourage all of us to live with compassion, a positive attitude, and a sense of humor through it all because that’s how we can honor my big sister, Shannon. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

SOF Scholarships

 Like everything else in 2020, things are different this year for the Shannon O'Hara Foundation. We are sending out our yearly letter to our donors, but without a specific hard request for donations. The foundation is financially healthy, and we recognize that this has bene an incredibly difficult year for people and businesses that have always supported us. We will weather this storm.

It is highly unlikely that we will be at Graham Arena in January as we normally are for various hockey events, including the Shannon Cup youth hockey tournament. Even if there's a way to hold the tournament itself by late January, we don't anticipate that it will be safe to be in the arena selling our merchandise and mingling with teams. We will patiently wait for better days ahead, and plan to return in 2022.

High school winter sports are also a question mark right now. We feel for these student athletes who are missing out on making memories. We will miss the chances to watch kids play the sport that Shannon loved so much.

One thing that won't change is the SOF scholarship. The pandemic won't stop us from supporting higher education and local youth by giving out scholarships again in 2021. 

Today, I took the time to look back at our scholarship winners. I needed the reminder of something good.

               

       

In our 8 years, 26 kids have received a total of $55,000. Like everything else this year, scholarship season will look different, but we will give them out some way, some how...

If you know a Rochester HS senior who played youth hockey, encourage them to apply. The application is available on the Shannon O'Hara Foundation website. Applications are due Jan. 10th.

Stay safe and be well, everyone.