Do You Have The Courage

To read this on the air?

 

The story is heartbreaking, literally. You will cry.

A 4-year-old nicknamed “Poot,” and a mother who loves him more than her own life.

Do you have the courage to read this to your listeners?

~

Later that day, she went to her son’s room to tell him the fight was over:

Ruth: Poot, it hurts to breathe doesn’t it?
Nolan: Weeeelll…. yeah.
Ruth: You’re in a lot of pain aren’t you baby?
Nolan: (looking down) Yeah.
Ruth: Poot, this cancer stuff sucks. You don’t have to fight anymore.
Nolan: (Pure happiness) I DON’T??!! But I will for you Mommy!!
Ruth: No Poot!! Is that what you have been doing?? Fighting for Mommy??
Nolan: Well DUH!!
Ruth: Nolan Ray, what is Mommy’s job?
Nolan: To keep me SAFE! (With a big grin)
Ruth: Honey … I can’t do that anymore here. The only way I can keep you safe is in Heaven. (My heart shattering)
Nolan: Sooooo, I’ll just go to Heaven and play until you get there! You’ll come, right?
Ruth: Absolutely!! You can’t get rid of Mommy that easy!!
Nolan: Thank you Mommy!!! I’ll go play with Hunter and Brylee and Henry (friends who had gone to Heaven)!!

After their conversation, a doctor came in the room, and Nolan exclaimed, “Guess where I am going? I am going to Heaven!”

“I will never be able to put into words how amazing he is,” Ruth says of her son. “He was made of nothing but love. He would walk into all the rooms, pat the kids on the back and say, ‘Don’t cry, Nolan is here.’ All he wanted to do was help people.”

For the next few days, they played and watched YouTube. Nolan was on morphine, so he slept a lot. Whenever he woke up, he would ask for his Nerf gun and his police uniform.

“On Feb. 4, I was lying in bed with him,” Ruth says. “One of the families had ordered us dinner. Nolan looked at me and said, ‘Mommy, you can eat, but I am not gonna eat.’ I said, ‘You don’t have to.’ “

Later that night, Ruth took out a book – a pediatric will – and asked Nolan some questions.

“He picked people’s clothes for his funeral, he chose his pallbearers,” she says. “He left each of us something of his. He wanted to take his Nerf guns and his tablet in his Heaven box. And he wanted to be buried in his police uniform.”

A little after 9 p.m., Ruth asked Nolan if she could take a shower.

“He said yes, but he wanted to turn in bed to look at me,” she says. “I told him I will just be two seconds, so he looked at me and smiled. The second the bathroom door clicked, he shut his eyes.”

Nolan slipped into a deep sleep. When Ruth got out of the shower, the entire team was standing around the bed. There were tears all around.

“They said, ‘Ruth, we think he’s passing.’ I jumped in his bed, he was still turned to the bathroom door, and I put my hand on his face to turn it toward me. He took a breath, opened his eyes, smiled at me and said, ‘I love you mommy.’ Then, he shut his eyes. His breathing eventually stopped. I sat there and didn’t care if he could hear me or not … We always sang the song ‘You are my Sunshine.’ I just sat there and sang to him … I told him how much I loved him.”

Nolan passed away at 11:54 that evening.

~

When we personalize humanity, we unlock a part of our heart usually hidden from view.

This story, this true story, delivered the way it happened, in the words of mother and son, will do more to motivate your listeners to help fight childhood cancers than any other thing your station can do.

If you post it on your website, it may gain more hits than any other ever posted.

So, plan this out.

Give your listeners a way to channel their grief about this one mother’s loss into action that may save another mother and son from having to go through such pain.

And don’t be afraid of your emotion.

All the pauses when you can’t speak, no matter how long, all the times your voice cracks and wavers, all the grief that comes from your heart will be felt by everyone who hears you.

Can you think of any better way to use your stage today?