This is a story about Miracle Weekend, ChildRun 2010 and why you should get involved (which may or may not involve a micro-financing campaign involving Team Media Awesome).

Here’s a fun fact about yours truly and, I will argue, 99% of people out there: I absolutely love getting mail. So you can imagine the absolute elation I experienced when, last Thursday night, I pedaled home from work andfound a mystery letter addressed to “Editor of the Potentiality” in my mailbox – was it hipster-hate-mail from our award-winning douchebag series? An invitation to The Bloggies (a social media award show I just made up but that actually sounds kinda real)? Or was it a court order sent on behalf of Kurt Heinrich, you know, because of all the slandering?

No. It was none of those things. World-changer and The Potentiality Correspondent, Theodora Lamb, had sent me a hand-made, superawesome card from one of the sick kids at Children’s Hospital with a note inside wishing me good luck on this weekend’s ChildRun. Did the message reach into my soul and massage it a little? Yes, it did. Were the cockles of my heart warmed? Yes. Yes they were. Did I talk to my fiancé about babies that night? Of course I did. She might very well steal a baby without semi-constant assurance of probable-future-baby-production. More than anything, though, I was struck by the perfectly simple and simply perfect nature of the gesture. And it moved me beyond words.

Don’t worry, I got my words back. I always do…

Here are my three favourite things about the card:

1. Sense of Irony. As recently outlined in an article on this blog, I am allergic to the Sun. The bright yellow card I received had a giant sun made out of feathers right smack in the middle of it! Hilarious. And, hey, laughter is the best medicine.
2. Community-Building Penmanship. Okay, so the note in the card was a little tough to decipher – luckily, I opened the card in a public place with lots of eager helpers who were interested in learning more about my Sun-feather-bright-sparkly-yellow-amazing-card and who it was from.
3. Personal Touch. When I was a kid, I spent some time in Children’s getting said rare Sun disorder (porphyria) diagnosed – it was painful and I felt weird, alone, small, and different from all the normal kids. Having a life-threatening illness is just plain terrible, let alone when you’re a kid who is really sick. The card made me proud to have set the big, hairy, audacious goal of raising $500 for Team Media Awesome by this Saturday – but, let’s face it, such a number is a paltry one. So I encourage you to follow this link and make a big difference for some kids today!

Thanks for your time. And thank you Theodora Lamb for being the architect behind this fantastic social media strategery and arranging an interview with one of BC Children’s Hospital’s young world-changers. I’m looking forward to it!