Help Cassandra raise money

Running has meant so many very different things to me over the years and this year as I start training I can’t help but feel the shift, this race is different, this run is different and the cause, to raise funding for the Heart Warrior Foundation is so families have the support they need during their darkest days, please take a moment to read of the foundation the DiFava family, their story and my why.

https://heartwarriorfoundation.com/?fbclid=IwAR1am6PKqqtFKJ6iHXJfb08p5GSwmovUWINyBznV0fpJDEtwGVV9DQhIcow

From Caitlin DiFava: “I always promised myself, after laying my eyes on Genevieve for the first time and falling instantly in love with her, that if the day ever came that we needed to part, that I would be brave enough to continue telling her story and sharing with the world how truly special she was.  Genevieve deserved that.  She deserved the person who knew her everything to sing her song. So let me begin.
The name Genevieve, actually means “white wave” and there is no truer description of my sweet girl.  When she came into the world, she crashed down on us with such a ferocity that life shifted in an instant.  It was those changes that became the catalyst for me and Matt’s most precious journey we ever embarked on.  
Genevieve was our greatest life teacher.  From the day we found out about her diagnosis, everything turned from the frivolous rat race of every day to slowing down and listening. How some may view finding respite at the sea, that’s how we now viewed what our life needed to be. Peaceful, meaningful, gentle, special, and full of more love and laughter than imaginable.  
As her life continued, we learned the fragility of the path she was walking.  We also learned that if there was any word that did NOT describe Genevieve, it was fragile.  I have learned over the years that those two things can walk together and never hold hands.  Her life’s fragility but her lack of being fragile was a testament of her great strength and willingness to endure the hard because there was so much more good.
The best word to describe Genny is fierce.  Trust me, all you had to do was cross her to know the truth to my choice of this adjective.  From day one, if she didn’t agree with the plan, you were going to know about it.  From guiding her doctors in just how they were going to adjust her treatments and on her terms, to telling nurses how they were going to draw labs or change dressings with the authority of a general, or arguing with me on how the shapes of the 4 E’s in her name should look like on lined paper.  Just like a wave chooses its own way and there is nothing you can do to adjust it or alter its path.  There were times her strong will pushed me to the brink, but it was this will that gave her so much fight and helped her trample the fragile path she walked.
Like a day at the beach, Genny was like the warm sun that cast so much light and happiness into all the lives she touched over the years.  She set out on her unpredictable life journey with no cares.  She was unique.  She was confident. She was hilarious.  She was beautiful in all ways. She was gentle. She was witty.  She was so incredibly brilliant.  She was perfect in every way, not just in a way a mother views her child as perfect.
She gave her self no limits or bars of what she was capable of.  She chose how high her wave would swell, and boy was it high. She hated to be treated different and was always saying “if Giuli can do it, so can I”.  And she did, just that.   Her fierce determination always made me smile because she had the heart I could only dream of having.  
Genevieve has now taught us her greatest lesson, as she has slowly slipped backed to the sea and left us all changed like the small granules of sand under her powerful yet soft impact.   She has taught us that love truly does conquer all.  That there is no force powerful enough to take love. Not even death - for there are bonds that can never be broken, that of a mother’s love. That love lives on and it lives on for eternity in our hearts and in our memories.  
And now when I look at the sand, I can see how different, yet so very beautiful she has left it.  The new path we now walk with her is the most challenging.  It is filled with anger and despair, unbearable sadness and complete heart ache.  But she has instilled in us a strength, that if we can carry even so much as a fragment of it with us, we will continue to walk it with the strength she walked hers.  She has given us too much good in her short life to walk it any other way.
Genevieve and Giuliana are my greatest life’s gift, accomplishments and the most treasured honor to be called their mama. I know in one of my hands will always and forever be Genny, with her gentle touch but guiding nature to help pull us all forward.
We love you so, Genevieve.  We used to say to infinity and beyond times infinity and beyond before bed.  I know the true meaning of how capable that love is now.  
I know you are now whole, and running and drinking all the water you ever wanted.  Thank you for teaching me how to live. Thank you for the beautiful gift of you. We will always look for your beautiful light on the darkest of nights and carry your beauty on the path in front of us forever.
Your story is one of beauty. Your song is one I love to listen to.  Your essence is a presence that is tucked into so many hearts.  Your laughter is a joy that fills my soul.  Your being still lives.  And it will forever.”

Running for you Genny💜