Randy and James

This is one of the harder posts for me to compose. Tonight is the Night to Shine prom that, under normal circumstances, Randy would be attending with his girl friend. But instead of posting about that, I want to mention Randy’s brother, James. James is my youngest son and he’s about 7 years younger than Randy, but he looked more liked the big brother because of all Randy had been through during his cancer fight.

I wanted to talk about James because 1) I can, 2) I haven’t discussed Randy’s siblings much, and 3) I feel bad for James. I feel bad because this is James’s senior year of high school. And in my opinion, he has had the worst senior year in the history of senior years. First, he has the “lucky fortune” of being in the midst of a pandemic for his final high school year. Dances canceled, basketball games he was supposed to play in pushed back and heavily crowd restricted, and who knows how many other scholastic events shut down. Secondly, his parents divorced just before the start of the school year. It wasn’t planned that way, but it happened. And he had to go through that.

Finally, and by far most importantly….he loses his brother halfway through the school year.

The psychological impact of that event alone would be enough to tear someone apart. I can’t imagine a young man having a worse senior year than what James has had to suffer through.

In a previous post, I talked about how proud I am that Randy not only found love, but he showed me what pure love really is. When I think about James, I’d have to say that I’m most proud of his strength and resilience. James has been asked to take on more than ANYONE his age should be asked to, but he’s done it with an inner strength that’s inexplicable. He dealt with all of that and has somehow still managed to keep his focus on finishing the year strong and has kept moving forward. James is an excellent writer, actor, and the best teammate I’ve ever seen. I hope he never has to experience another year in his lifetime like this one, but no matter what comes his way, I know James can handle it. Those calves of his (they are enormous lol) have had to carry the weight of a lot of catastrophic events, and he’s done it. James is going to be an amazing dad one day….he’s a rock.