A note from Bethany…

I lost my big brother on May 1st. If you've been around HallieStrong for anytime, you know I talk often about rusty linings. We even have a Rusty Linings program. He was the one who coined that phrase as he sat with me at radiation one day. This is a picture from that day. Here is what I shared in part of my eulogy:

"When I was going through treatment, my brother and I spent a lot of 1:1 time together. He drove me to radiation one day and started talking about how thankful he was for all the 1:1 time together, but pointed out it likely would’ve never happened at this adult stage of life without cancer. We wrestled with that. The good and the bad. The good in the bad. How do you reconcile it? I called it a silver lining and in true Kev fashion he said, “that's way too positive Beef." He negotiated it down, and he finally landed on "It's a rusty lining." It became a thing of ours. That picture on the obituary is actually from that day."

It's far too fresh to see the rusty linings in his loss yet, but I know they'll come. Life is hard. So hard. His loss is so hard to come to grips with. Yet another reminder of how precious yet fleeting this life is.

For right now, we’ve turned the sock request page off to take a little time to grieve this enormous loss. We hope to be back up and running some time in June.

Thank you so much for understanding. Hug your family and friends tight.

-Bethany