Who Said Discovering Was Fun

When I started this blog, I thought this would be a place to share all of the adventures a new mom, family and baby would have as they learned and laughed together. I thought discovery would be a positive and funny thing even in the not so cute moments.... and it is most of the time. But I learned something last night that was a really sad discovery so I warn you, if your looking for funny and cute wait till the next blog.

Had to add in something to make people smile

Do you ever have moments where life just jumps up and smacks you across the face? It happened so quickly last night that I am still trying to make sense of it. We were on our way home from taking Connor to his first live basketball game at my work. I was checking facebook (Joe was driving) and I was starting to see posts from friends to one person about "sending good thoughts" or "love you so much" and I got this sinking feeling in my stomach so I quickly jumped to that person's facebook to find out he has cancer. And according to his blog "very aggressive" cancer. Smack!

Lovingly and jokingly this person calls himself Joe and I's matchmaker because he placed us on staff together in IU. The joke part is that he places everyone on staff at IU and it just so happens Joe and I got put together but needless to say, he was so involved with our lives at IU that we can joke and love him for doing this. (He was the main person that helped Joe and I do a double job search- I'll never forget our lunch where he said "wow, this is interesting talking to both of you. I usually smack Joe around and have really thoughtful conversations with Amy." Did he know us or what?!)

Go Hoosiers!

And if you don't know, moving to Indiana and living in this foreign place was not easy for me. I was grouchy, confused, and just trying to make sense of so much that very few people took the time to see though all of that to the real me. This person was one of them.



And let me just tell you about who he is... the minute you meet him you just love him. He is so personal, caring and warm. He'll remember your name after meeting you once and call you by it every time after. He is what strengthsquest would call a wooer (winning others over) not in a "hey let me get to know you to sell you something" way but in a genuine, I really care about who you are way. And now he has "very aggressive" cancer. Smack!

So in thinking about all of this last night and this morning I'm just in shock. Complete and total shock. Impacted beyond words. And from a few reactions from friends, they are too.


In Student Affairs, we often become family for a few reasons, one, most people do not understand what we do in our daily jobs, and two, student affairs is such an open, equity seeking, liberal, come as you are profession that we have to depend on each other sometimes to make sense of living in a world that can be closed minded, harsh, and not so accepting. (Joe and I feel so much a part of this family that were taking Connor to the national conference to meet so many, many friends and mentors.) So when a "family" members gets this kind of news it leaves an impact... I would call it a permanent imprint on my heart.

On his blog site where he will be writing to share with anyone who wants to follow him (love blogging even more now) he shares that he doesn't want money, he wants people to do something more impactful for their own lives as they journey with him. And that's what I've been thinking about too.... this is someone I aspire to be like... to love on people as much as he does. So how do I take all that I have learned from him and apply it to what I do? I don't have any answers for that now but I do know that this news will probably change me forever.

This person mentored me at a time where I really needed it. Who do you consider to be a mentor to you?