A life cut too short…in memory of Justin Whitaker

A call from my youngest brother Jason the other day left me in tears. A sweet voice trying to be strong as he gave me the news of one his best friends passing. Days of visiting Justin in the hospital, holding his hand, and talking to him…came to an end. His funeral today, and expected crowd of over 4000 people…he touched so many lives, even mine.

Justin Whitaker, passed from non-Hodgkin’s T-cell lymphoma, an aggressive form of cancer that attacks the immune system at the age of 18. For the last several years he had been in and out of the hospital…everyone hoping and holding on for good news that he was getting better. Fundraiser after fundraiser the community pulled together to raise money, its truly amazing what these people, including my family, have done to support and help out Justin and his father.

As I began talking to Jason, I found myself searching for the right words, the best words to try and help him cope. But there are no right words, there is no reason that you can justify why this happened to such an amazing kid. Time I told him, it will just take time. Always remember him for the great person he was, the times you shared on the baseball field, and his strength.

The following night under the lights, the varsity baseball team gathered around Jason as he said, ” Play for Justin tonight.”

washington post article

Justin Whitaker

Becky the Add-on Queen

BeckBlogic you are the add on queen!  Thanks for the inside info on translator, what a great tool to have on our blogs, I am going to download now!  Tell your son Jack I said thanks too!

I also am going to look into adding on feedburner, technorati “fave this blog” and the social media bookmarking and sharing application.    Maybe it will help to raise the number of clicks on my blog…

Thanks!!!

Comments on Corporate Blogging

Hi Rosie! Great minds think alike! I would definitely be interested in getting a group together to discuss corporate blogging further. It seems like there are many pros and cons to having a corp. blog -when do you know if it is right for your company? And honestly…and you probably agree, I am use to having a new idea and implementing it myself or with the people on my pr/marketing team…corporate blogging is something that I do not necessarily feel comfortable just handling on my own…I definitely feel it would have to be a collaborative effort… and with that come more challenges!

mintymusings said 2 months ago:

Rosie,
Great real-life example… proving that you have to do blogging right or don’t even try. Doing it wrong can be disastrous. And I like Colleen’s idea of talking corporate blogging. I would love to institute a blog at work, but I really think I’d have to do some convincing.

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Rosie said 2 months ago:

Colleen, I had such a similar response to our reading. In fact, I said almost exactly what you did using different words. Maybe throughout the course of the semester we can form a brainstorming group that can tackle the issue of how to introduce the idea of corporate blogging to a generation of marketing professionals who grew up (me included) feeling the need to control all information in order to be good at their jobs. Check out my blog on the reading: http://www.rosemaryheiss.com. It’s funny how similar our thoughts are.