Being the mother of 5 children, my 5th one, adopted later in his life and mine, the thought of losing any one of them, is unimaginable. This episode is about the unimaginable - a mother, a family, who lost a beautiful, funny, feisty, smart, caring, courageous 7-year-old to cancer. As many of you know, I have had my personal battle with cancer and currently, my younger brother is facing his - unless you have been through your own, it is hard to imagine the havoc that chemotherapy, radiation, and medications wreak on your body, not to mention your spirit when you are feeling sick and definitely not looking like anything familiar to your pre-cancer self - As a grown-up, there are certain expectations of how I should be weathering my cancer journey - after all, I have lived a life, even if I am not ready to say good-bye, but a child - that is an entirely different story; one in which they are just beginning their life’s journey, only to be shortchanged or at best, sidetracked for a period-of-time where we bear witness to their suffering through various cancer treatments - it doesn’t get much worse…

Isabella Joanne Santos had a rare form of cancer, neuroblastoma, at age 2. She endured chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, antibodies, numerous ups & downs, meaning multiple relapses for 5 years until she passed away at age 7; while many of us were reading our children bedtime stories…Isabella and her family were waging a war. What was so spectacular about Isabella was that she was truly a rare gift to her family and to those who were lucky enough to meet her; the word rare in this context means an unusual, talented, gifted, special little girl, and yet, in the cancer world, rare means 700 children are affected each year. It means children, usually under the age of 5, are diagnosed with a form of cancer. It means scary statistics about survival rates and relapses. In the case of the latter instance, rare is not one of the words you ever want to hear.

Established in 2007, The Isabella Santos Foundation (ISF) is dedicated to eradicating pediatric cancer’s devastating impact while honoring the legacy of Isabella Santos, her courageous fight against neuroblastoma. Collaborating with medical institutions, ISF drives innovative research to pioneer new treatments and enhance young cancer patients’ lives. Over-the-course of seventeen years, ISF has provided over $7 million in funding toward expanding the scope of research and treatment and supporting families dealing with cancer in a variety of ways.

It was Isabella’s dream to Beat Cancer, Grow Hair, and Live Her Dreams. Although research and advanced treatments didn’t come in time for her dreams to come true, Isabella’s legacy will give other kids a fighting chance against rare childhood cancers.

Like so many smaller, gutsy organizations, they iterated in a positive direction to meet the unmet needs of their constituencies - in this case, all childhood cancers

Check out their website: www.isabellasantosfoundation.org

Armed with a 225,000 lb WWII- era wooden sailing craft, Greg Nichols, his wife, Nina and two kids, who actually live on this very unique and special vessel, serve as the catalyst in creating a learning environment that alters individuals’ mindsets forever by exposing them to the beauty and magic of learning through nature & community. This creates a lasting impression that being part of something bigger than oneself only aids in contributing to our shared legacy of caring for our world and our community. I cannot think of a more important lesson and one where our future, literally, resides. We need to celebrate and honor these creatives who are giving their expertise in ways that inspire each of us to consider new ways of doing things, problem-solving, decision-making, repairing the world through the lens of learning and appreciation. The world feels fractured.

Onward Industries is AN OUTDOORS COLLECTIVE OF THE CREATIVE & ADVENTURE-CURIOUS FOCUSED ON CONNECTION, INSPIRATION & CARING TOGETHER

I’m going to let you digest what Onward says about itself:

When you do inspiring things in beautiful places with people that light you up, a palpable sense of possibility sneaks in. It’s like a crack in the walls of the maze we navigate in daily life. When you’re in a beautiful place, when the walls vanish, priorities rearrange themselves, reality seems clearer. On a mountain top or at sea under a quilt of stars, buzzing with connection and giddy from a day of play or purpose, you’re pretty tuned in. You get to talking with a new friend. Ideas pour out. Enthusiasm bubbles up. A new reality takes shape. That’s a powerful state.

What this translates to is:

Onward Industires is about setting the table for those experiences, and also about enabling the next step. they take creative and curious individauls outside by land and sea for objectively awesome breaks from the daily hustle–retreats, performances, immersive education, expeditions. Martin Buber would definitely be on board with this and might literally jump on Onward’s vessel to be part of this experience.

Onward Industries are big believers in storytelling and immersion as the foundation of powerful educational experiences. They use professional storytellers, inspirational scientists, and all the resources at their disposal to offer hands-on, immersive experiences for children utlizing ocean-based educational programming with top scientists, pirate experts, - yes, I did say pirate - we’ll learn about that in a moment, storytellers, and adventurers.

For more information:

www.onwardindustries.org

If you’ve ever been pregnant or been in the process of adopting or engaging in a surrogacy, you know the milestones set for each month of that journey and the belief of trusting the process, medical and emotional, that everything will work out as it should, meaning you will have a beautiful little life to whom you will love, cherish, and tend forever; that amazing feeling of anticipation just before the arrival, making sure the nursery is set, all the loose ends are tied up…and that moment comes, and then, there is silence..utter silence. That is the experience of so many who have lost a child along that path, and so much harder and lonelier the closer you are to what should be the end of one journey and the beginning of your parental journey…this is just unnatural and unfair, and so, so very heartbreaking. Anderson Cooper does an episode on his podcast, Is This All There Is featuring a mother who experienced the Greatest Loss…beautifully shared and deeply painful to hear…

Check out their website: www.bornintosilence.org