Megsmilers - We Could Be Heroes

Yesterday morning I was still lost in the glory of completing my first half marathon. At the same time, I was stirred by memories of meeting so many wonderful people standing shoulder to shoulder and bearing the weight of one giant legacy. I didn't think I could feel any higher. Then I got a text message from Scott. 

It said:

"When you get a chance go on iTunes and listen to a new song that I heard yesterday on the way to church. It's called Heroes - by Alesso. It describes all Megsmilers! When we have time you and I should put together a video showing all the Megsmiles photos using this song. It's inspiring I think."

Two things stuck out to me about Scott's message. One, I know I underestimated Scott's jumping ability as he proudly went on to prove in last week's jump shot photo. But just because one can out-jump the 50 year old fat man beside him doesn't mean one is suddenly a video producer. And I'm sorry, outside of pushing the play button on youtube I'm just not sure that's Scott's expertise. So I think he knew he was planting a seed in me. I think he also knew how quickly I'd want to see that seed grow. 

Second. I sometimes send Scott song lyrics or scriptures when I feel like he might need a lift. Often on Mondays. So him sending me one - on Monday - seemed backwards. I eventually got him on the phone to talk about our project. When he began sharing his thoughts about this song and the heroes he'd met over the weekend, he sounded as excited and genuinely happy as I'd  heard him sound since last January. I wasn't talking to a guy enthused about a video. I was talking to a man genuinely fired up about the direction and hope found in this Megsmiles group. 

Scott says it all the time - his number one hope for the Megsmiles group rests beyond miles and marathons. It rests in love. People loving God like Meg loved God. People loving people like Meg loved people. I heard it in Scott's voice. He saw and heard things this weekend that overwhelmed him with hope that even if his sadness never goes away, maybe people will find love they never would have found without it. I don't think he'll ever get to the point of saying that makes it all worth it. But I know he sees heroes in the people fighting to make it worth something. 

The truth is Scott and Pam and Wirt and their families expend so much energy each day battling their own sadness, the kind of sadness that seems wickedly determined to hold them down forever. For their fight we rightfully see them as heroes. But we need to know - they truly see us as heroes too. We're the ones holding the power to turn sadness to love from Virginia to Ohio to Texas to Germany and beyond. We can run the streets of Richmond, New York and Las Vegas, some of us further and faster than we've ever run in our lives, and unashamedly proclaim we do it in memory of a young lady who could out-run most of us and out-love all of us. 

As runners, the finish line is always important. As a woman of God, Meg eyed the ultimate finish line as the most important one, one she's now crossed. I don't know about you, but a couple of times during my race this past weekend I heard Meg calling for heroes. Megsmilers who will lovingly point folks toward that ultimate finish line and joining her post-race celebration (I hear we can be sure she's planning a doozy). I think Scott's excitement Monday came from discovering first hand last weekend how many people are listening to her calls. He discovered his life is filled with heroes.   

Scott told me as he and his family listened to the song in the video on the way to church, it wasn't long before everyone was signing along. I hope you'll picture that as you watch and listen. I hope you'll get a sense of just how much it made his Monday to find a way to express: you all are heroes. 

The video below is the same video. It is uploaded to this blog site instead of to YouTube. YouTube makes it much easier for the public to search for videos and come across Meg's story through general web surfing. But, some folks ran into trouble accessing it on YouTube so I uploaded a copy of the video directly to the site.