I began today's post with telling you a little bit about Jason Foster and I would like to share something with you that he wrote to me in an email that he would like to share and I agree.  This story tells you not only something about the passion that Jason puts into his writing, but speaks volumes of his character.  

     "Back in the late 1990s, I was a columnist for a couple of college football websites, as well as for a few college teams sport sites.  Back in November of 1998, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 29.  Her diagnosis came around the time that my alma mater, Michigan State, upset the #1 ranked Ohio State on the road as a 28 point underdog.  A lot of people were expecting me to whoop it up in my next column.  Instead I wrote about that the fact that I was so subdued was that I was dealing with more important issues.  I then detailed my wife's breast cancer diagnosis and its impact on our young family."

 
     "One year later, I was writing a column for the University of Michigan website previewing the Michigan-Michigan State football game.  At the time, my wife was undergoing follow-up treatments at the University of Michigan hospital.  So instead of writing my list of favorite Wolverine jokes, I paid homage to the oncology staff at the U of M hospital.  As I detailed the approaching one-year anniversary of the diagnosis, I mentioned that it is very normal for a cancer patient to get depressed at the anniversary of the diagnosis as it brings back memories of being scared, the invasions to one's body, and the fear of the future due to the worry of death or recurrence."
 
     "I wrote that instead of choosing to worry on the one-year anniversary of the cancer diagnosis, I said 'Screw it.  We are not going to see this as the anniversary of the day she was diagnosed with cancer.  Instead we am going to celebrate it as the one-year anniversary that her life was saved.  And we were going to celebrate it somehow.   A special weekend trip somewhere, buy something special, something like that."
 
     "One week after that column was published, I received an e-mail from a young woman from Ann Arbor.   She was a 20-year old student who coincidentally enough, was facing the one-year anniversary of her own cancer diagnosis.   She stated in her e-mail that she was indeed feeling the fear and all of the normal negative reactions related to the anniversary of the dreaded day."
 
     "But once she read my words, she told me that she experienced a complete attitude shift.  She was no longer going to be afraid.   Instead, she and a couple of her friends were going to spend the weekend in Chicago and celebrate her life being saved, not be depressed that she had to face death.   It was a complete attitude adjustment for the positive and she had the words in my last column to thank for it."
 
     "Reading her comments made a tremendous impact on me.  I was like, "Wow!  I was able to make a difference just from the words I write."   That was quite an amazing feeling.  That was 12 1/2 years ago and that memory is still fresh inside of me to this day.  If I am ever fortunate enough to sell a million books or whatever, I can honestly say that such an accomplishment won't match the sensation that that 20-year old college student gave me by telling me what a difference I made with her life."