School Walk

I spent two days this week taping paper JDRF sneakers to the walls of my daughter's school.  To begin with, my instructions were to post them all over the gym where the walk was held, and then to make my way up the staircase to the main office.  "We'll see how far we get from there," said the gym teacher who was in charge of the program.

Five hundred (500!) paper sneakers later, we managed to plaster the entire elementary school. 

Anyone who lives with a diabetes has moments of feeling alone.  We have times where we're convinced there is no end in sight.  There are days of fear, anxiety, and hopelessness.

Today, I watched my daughter walk around the gym plastered with those sneakers. She stopped to admire the JDRF her friends had spelled in balloons before she arrived.  Despite the occasional waitwhat moment, I happily spent two days listening to the children in her school correctly answer questions about Type 1 diabetes.  My favorite was a kindergartener who, when asked why she was walking, explained it was to "make the diabetes go away from the kids who have it."

An amazing amount of money was raised for JDRF to fund research for a cure.  It's a great organization and I'm glad those funds will be put to work.

Today, though, I am happier about the 500 paper sneakers.  They serve as proof that somebody cares.  My daughter will pass them on the way to and from the nurse's office, and everywhere else throughout her day.  She will see familiar names on some, of our friends and family who donated, and of her classmates and their families.  She'll even see names of people she's never met, but who still care about an end to her diabetes journey.  She'll be reminded that she's not walking on her diabetes journey alone; there are at least 500 footsteps beside her all the way.