Yep, we know we're a state of Virginia blog, and Maryland is the next state over.
But we ran across this story that couldn't help but touch our hearts about Terrapins coach Brenda Frese, mother of twin boys. Her son, Tyler, has leukemia.
Writer Dave Sheinin does a beautiful job throughout in The Washington Post story, particularly in describing how Brenda's husband, Mark, revealed the news to his wife that Tyler had leukemia:
It was Sept. 28, 2010 – they can both recite the date by heart – and Brenda was riding a coach’s high, in the midst of what was shaping up as a great day of recruiting. And truth be told, as much as she missed her 2-year-olds, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to have gotten a full, uninterrupted night of sleep in that quiet hotel room the night before.
She was in her rental car, heading back to the hotel.
“I need you to pull over,” Mark was saying through her cellphone.
Pacing around the ER at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, he had thought hard about how to say what he was about to say, understanding the need to be both direct and upbeat. But all he could picture was her all alone by the side of a road, with no one to comfort her.
And all she could hear was: “Leukemia.”
“You hear that word,” she said recently, “and it’s only natural that your first thought is: How much longer does my son have to live?”
