I’ve got a story for you. I’ll share one story from the Blue-Skies Week mentioned in an earlier post.
During the week, we had daily breakout sessions for all the kids – those receiving treatment, their siblings, and kids of volunteer families. Kids could pick the session that interested them, such as painting, cooking, soccer, journalism, or guitar lessons. Group sessions would run about an hour or hour and a half…during a steamy part of the day, late morning in Florida!
Antonio is the handsome guy in the middle of the photo. Antonio is undergoing treatment that can make him tired and nauseated and keep him from fully enjoying 2 of his loves in life: dancing and playing soccer!
For group sessions, Antonio picked soccer. (All dance sessions were ad hoc. And, they were legendary. Nothing beats watching Kaydyn do the Stanky Leg(g).) Antonio loves to play soccer, and he’s very good at the sport. Tuesday morning we had teams divided into a 7-on-7 scrimmage with no keeper. Antonio was warming up, excited about playing, but didn’t feel very good. He got sick. I’ll spare the details, but if I were in his shoes, I would’ve crawled into bed and called it a day. Not Antonio. He sat out with a volunteer for a few minutes, drank water, cleared his head, felt better and said LET’S PLAY!
Antonio joined the others and played soccer for an hour, scoring several times! He taught us many lessons along the way. Beyond the sweet soccer skills, Antonio gave us a great lesson in perseverance and Olympic-sized Inspiration.
Way to go, Antonio!