This post is not about Cathy.

Today, my friend, Sammy, will lay his wife to rest.  She was only 33.  They were married barely a year when she began her battle with cancer.  She fought for seven years to the day of her diagnosis.  Her body gave up the fight, but her spirit didn't.

My heart and prayers have been with them for a long time.  They have both been an inspirational vision of strength and grace.  In their simultaneous careers as music teachers they reached thousands of students in addition to their friends and family, as we all collectively watched their struggles, ultimately powerless to change the outcome.  We've all learned from them the power of being positive and loving others.  These lessons will extend through generations thanks to the connection of so many young people to Sammy and Stephanie.

Being inspired by positive people doesn't make us immune to negative thoughts and negative situations, though.  It is a constant struggle that goes back and forth.  It's almost like a tug of war.  Sometimes I feel myself at the edge of the mud, peering over and feeling the momentum moving the wrong way.  It is at those moments that I feel the tug of my teammates behind me, pulling me away from the pit.  I relish the day that I watch the negative side fall face down in that mud.  We probably all feel this way at times.  Sammy and Stephanie have taught me to trust my teammates to pull me when I can't pull myself.

I've thought of Sammy a lot the last week.  How hard it must have been to have held Stephanie's hand as she drifted away.  How hard it must have been to bring her back to Ohio and enter his home without her.  How hard it must have been to stand beside her motionless body as he greeted the hundreds who came to pay their respects.  How hard it will be to see her lowered into the ground today.  He smiles.  He lives.  He gives.  He loves.