Great Strides

This past weekend, Scott and I walked in our city's Great Strides walk to cure Cystic Fibrosis. This walk was near to our hearts for one big, important reason.

Scott's best friend is Ryan. Ryan had CF. When Scott moved to IL when he was 7 years old, Ryan was one of his very first friends - they were close right from the beginning. Scott and Ryan grew up and went through a lot of things together - Cystic Fibrosis was one of those things. From playing together at school to visiting Ryan in the hospital during treatments to going to sports games together, they were best buds. To their child-like eyes, CF was something that Ryan had to go into the hospital for every now and then - it wasn't a big deal. But it really was.

They shared a sense of humor, a love of sports and a childhood.

Scott stood up for Ryan in his wedding as his best man. Ryan stood up for Scott in our wedding, though he had just been in the hospital a few days before and went back a few days after.

When Scott and I were dating, I met Ryan a handful of times on my visits to IL - though I felt like I had known him for years. And though Scott and I double-dated with Ryan and Kristin, Ryan's wife, once or twice, I felt as though they were our dearest friends.

Ryan passed away almost two years ago. Scott spoke at his funeral. Though Scott doesn't talk much about it, I know that Ryan meant the world to him. That losing Ryan was like losing a piece of himself, a piece of his past.

We remember Ryan a lot - we remember his children's birthdays, we remember the anniversary of his death, we remember our dinner out at Buffalo Wildwings (it was my first time there and Ryan convinced me that I could handle the #6 - I couldn't). And we remembered as we walked on Saturday.

Kristin put together a team for her local Great Strides walk in MI - the Sweeney Striders. Never ones to turn down matching t-shirts, we asked to join their team and Kristin sent us two shirts to wear in our walk.

Not gonna lie, it was a tough walk. I haven't done that much exercise in over 9 months! Brooke slept through most of it and I was pooped out afterwards!

But it felt really, really good to be part of a cause that Scott was so connected to - one that Scott had watched his best friend experience firsthand. When you hear about CF, you think, "what a devastating disease!", how there's no cure and how thousands of people are struggling to breath and to live. Knowing Ryan has put CF in a different perspective. It is devastating, that's true - but only as much as one allows it to be. Though he finally lost his battle, Ryan did some serious CF butt-kicking for a long while.

Though we didn't do a whole lot of butt-kicking ourselves, we did walk. Brooke walked, I walked and Scott walked - for his best friend.