It’s amazing how things have a way of getting themselves worked out, sometimes without any participation on my behalf. Sometimes the people who change our lives the most are people we never get to meet. This is my story of Laiken.

The thing that sealed the deal for me raising money for and running with Team in Training this fall was a brief mention on the radio about a month ago. [Don’t tease me, I listen to Country! I just love songs that tell stories that I can sing to.] Anyway, my favorite So.Cal. radio station is KFRG (K-Frog) 95.1FM. I’ve listened to it since I was about 8 years old and learned what a radio was. Ever since before we moved to Chicago for a couple of years the DJs at KFRG have been keeping listeners up to date on a local girl’s battle with cancer. I am horrible about paying attention to names when they’re mentioned on the radio and I never knew what hers was. About a month ago, I was driving to San Dimas on the 10 freeway and listening in my car. They interrupted the afternoon broadcast to inform listeners that at the age of 12, she had passed away from Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.

“Wow” I thought, “I ran that marathon last fall, I should run another one in her honor and raise a bunch of money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.”

But again I missed her name. And one day passed into another and I didn’t hear anything more about her on the radio. I did, however, register for Team in Training fall season.

On my way to the Kick Off party this Saturday, I was listening to KFRG again and thinking about how I got into doing another marathon. I thought to myself “I should call the station sometime and get that little girl’s name and run in her honor.” But things were moving ahead without me.

When we got to our break-out team meeting for the Inland Empire team we me our honored teammate and our honored angel’s mother. When the Stacey, the honored angel’s mother stood up to tell her story about her daughter’s recent passing due to Leukemia she began by saying this: “There are a handfull of people who know exactly where they were on April 21st 2008 at 4:36 in the afternoon.”

Immediately I knew. I run in honor of Laiken. Help me raise $1 Million to find a cure for Leukemia by donating here.