"Hope" by Idina Menzel

How do I start this blog today? I have a few things I want to share - all having something to do with the human spirit's battle with CANCER - and not really knowing how I want to start. So, I guess I'll just jump in and hope that all who are reading this will understand and make their own sense out of my ramblings. (You may need to copy and paste the URL's to see them as I don't know if I was successful in embedding them in the blog so you can just click on them - sorry!)

With the passing of a great statesman, Ted Kennedy, we all have been made aware of his battle with brain cancer. His fight was valiant. A testament to his strength of spirit and strong support group of friends and family. However, how many of you have heard of another battling this same cancer with the same braveness, strength, and optimism by the name of PJ Lukac? I have never met him but I did work with his sister. She and her parents have been staunch supporters of PJ's fight with his brain cancer, typically an "older person's" illness. He was only 23 when he was diagnosed. He was a pre-med student who is now working in a lab to find a cure. He has become a strong motivator within the Chicagoland area with news articles regarding his journey - both in print and on TV.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/01/eveningnews/main5280491.shtml?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea

I am attaching another URL so that you can get to know PJ and the start of his journey.

http://hope.abta.org/site/TR/ABTAEvent/PathtoProgress?px=1738172&pg=personal&fr_id=1290

I am sure that you join with me in keeping this family in your thoughts and prayers as they make their way through the quagmire of battling cancer. And maybe, just maybe, he will be one of the ones to help find a cure for his type of cancer that will benefit all those future patients - both young and old - to not be so scared because there's a cure. That if a "purpose" or a "reason" can be found in all this, that it be for those future warriors.

Recently the world heard some news out of Detroit. Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell, the voice of the Tigers for more than four decades and a Detroit icon well beyond his retirement from broadcasting in 2002, has been diagnosed with cancer.

This is Chuck now. I have a special interest in Ernie's situation from two major standpoints. First, I grew up in Detroit, loved baseball, and listened to as many games as I could on the radio - and that meant listening to Ernie Harwell. Not only for my growing up years but even beyond, due to Tiger games being on WJR radio, the powerful 50,000 watt station. So when I was in college in Iowa or when we lived in northeastern Ohio or after we moved to the Chicago area, I could still listen to Ernie doing Tiger games. So there's that obvious connection to him. Secondly, as a cancer patient myself, I have empathy and some understanding for any other cancer patient, regardless of the cancer type.

With this in mind, I went on the Detroit Free Press web site (as I do daily) and clicked on an article about Ernie and his positive attitude throughout this. Within the article was an embedded video to play to the music of the song "Hope" (see below for more info). Since Ernie's case involved a baseball man, the video's opening shot showed a montage of photos of primarily Hall of Fame baseball players and other baseball people who had all died of cancer - people such as Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Greenberg. Then as the song played, there was video of more recent baseball players and people, the cancer they had contracted, and where applicable, significant baseball achievements they had made AFTER their diagnosis. I must admit that watching this and listening to the song about HOPE did bring a tear or two to my eye. I had no idea that some of those players even had cancer at all. And just seeing all of the Hall of Famers who died of cancer shows you that this disease, in any of its many forms, is absolutely no respecter of persons. If you get a chance to see this video, I highly suggest you do so, whether or not you like baseball. After all, the same type of video could have been made of captains of industry or famous musicians or politicians. Like I said, cancer is no respecter of persons. And now back to Cyndy.

Now for the title of this blog. MLB.com teamed up with Idina Menzel to produce "Hope," which was written by acclaimed composer Paul Hampton, and is now available in the Apple iTunes Music Store. (I am now copying excerpts from articles that Doug Miller, a Senior Writer for MLB.com/Entertainment wrote after interviewing Paul Hampton and Idina Menzel. These stories were not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.)

"Hope," was written after an empowering encounter with an injured bird while Paul Hampton was aboard a cruise ship. "I noticed there was a bird following the ship, and this bird looked like it had no wings," he said.

"It was just sailing along, hitchhiking on the ship. And I feel so many times like I'm a bird with no wings, (so) when I saw this bird ... I went down to the third floor, where there's the piano bar, and I sat down at the piano and immediately started playing this piano feel of a bird flying. And all of a sudden, I was there. I was the bird."

"(I'm) looking at the world today and I'm saying to myself, 'What is the one thing that people are losing the most?' If they've lost their wealth, that's one thing. If they're losing their health, it's even worse. But to lose hope (means) you've lost everything. So I thought, 'That's what I need to do.'"

"Only hope can really change your life," Hampton says. "Without it you're nothing. ... Only hope can light the way. No money. No platinum card laid out there. No gift. No Rolls-Royce.

"Nothing material. Only hope can heal the heart."

Doug Miller also interviewed Idina Menzel who had this to say:

"Hope is the bravest, most beautiful bird in the sky."

It's an evocative, emotional metaphor on its own, but when it pertains to the millions of us who have come in contact with cancer, it resonates even more powerfully.

"I've had several people in my extended famly and friends that have passed on because of cancer, and some that have survived," Menzel said. "I guess it's nice that it's an association with baseball because athletes are looked at as such strong people, as heroes, but this disease obviously makes people very vulnerable."

Menzel mentioned the main lyric of the song as the grand slam we can all hit by curing cancer.

"For me, it's a nice marriage between something that's very personal to me with the sport, being inspired by all those athletes and what they've overcome, and what they do to inspire other people to be full of hope and to look forward to a day when we don't have to worry about this anymore," she said.

"Cancer is a horrible thing, but we're finding a way to rise above and find the strength in us all in order to deal with it and fight it as best we can."

Please check out the URL below to see the video of "Hope".

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090904&content_id=6788056&vkey=news_det&fext=.jsp&c_id=det

Thank you for indulging me in sharing this with you. I encourage you to connect with the links and read or see for yourselves the HOPE that is so much a part of the human spirit!