Remembering Tammy - Part 2

In the spring of 2006, about 4 months before I started this blog, my late wife Jan was fighting the lung cancer that would eventually take her from us about a year later. She wanted to spend part of the summer at our condominium on Cape Cod, but was fretting about the myriad issues surrounding air travel, especially with metal rods in her spine and a boxful of medications.

While thinking about the logistics of this, I arrived at the conclusion that this trip could be much more for Jan. With that in mind, I worked out a plan to drive the distance, taking our time to get there as much as possible, along a route that would allow us to spend time with as many of Jan's relatives and friends as we could.

While on the way we got to see parts of the country we had never seen before, and people that we had not seen face to face for many, many years. The trip remains a good memory during a tough time. I wrote about it at length in the Yahoo group that chronicles Jan's illness.

Tammy Martin and her family didn't have the opportunity to travel together this way. I've written about Tammy before, roughly a year ago when she lost her battle with ovarian and colon cancer.

Circumstance and the progression of her illness prevented a trip for Tammy, her husband Burke, and their two children from happening.

Today, Burke and the remainder of Tammy's family began an effort to see to it that adults facing a serious illness have the opportunity to travel or share special experiences with their families. The Tammy D. Martin Trips, Dreams, and Memories Foundation held the kick-off of their initiative, along with a tree dedication in Tammy's memory, today at Hawthorne Park. This coincided with what would have been Tammy's 39th birthday.

I stopped down and spoke with Burke, Tammy's mother, and two sisters. All seemed buoyed by the reception so far from the community at large, which included plenty of media attention, in particular a very nice story in yesterday's Sentinel.

Hopefully this will translate into a healthy beginning for the foundation, and the ability for them to fund trips of this nature for families in need.

My check is already in the mail. If there is space within your heart and your finances to help a local charitable effort with an identified need get off the ground, please consider it. I will keep a banner at the bottom of this blog page until the end of the month, to serve as a reminder and as a measure of support.

Thanks.