Living for Kevin

After several years of running the Cupcheck Tournament, I felt like I wanted to do more. I feel that words can't do justice describing just how bigger than life Kevin was and the impact he had on people's lives. More than that though, I struggled with the thought that my kids would never know their Opa and learn from him in the way that as a kid you learn from your grandparents. Having lost my grandfather at the age of 7, I have a few good memories of him and the rest are stories. It tore me apart thinking that our children would never even have that, so I decided that I wanted to create something that would have a long lasting influence. Something that my children could know their Opa through in some way and feel proud of him the way I feel proud about the things my grandfather did. I decided we should create a nonprofit that could grow into something bigger than just ourselves.

One of the biggest barriers to doing that was coming up with a name. You might think that should be easy but the gravity of what a name would mean for something that I wanted to outlast myself was exponential. I reached out to friends and family for ideas as I struggled for weeks and weeks to come up with a name I felt would live up to the meaning of Kevin's life. A friend suggested "KWags Fights Cancer" and at first I kind of liked it for its aggressiveness but I wasn't quite sold on it. Sleep deprived and trying to get a few z's one random night before I'd have to feed our barely 2 month old third child, I had the thought of Fight For Kevin. It really stuck out to me because it had felt like in the five years since he passed away we had to fight through a lot that life threw our way. Grieving the loss of Kevin and navigating this new family dynamic between my wife, her brother, and my mother in-law without Kevin as our stabilizing force admittedly led to a lot of fights. We all experienced the stages of grief at different paces. We had to fight through a pandemic. We had to fight through multiple injuries and surgeries. Fight sleepless nights to take care of our young family. Through all of it, I've always thought about Kevin and what it would be like if he were still here to help us or I think about, what would Kevin do to get through this situation. Most often though, when I feel like I'm almost on empty and want to give up, I think of who Kevin was as a person and gather my strength to live up to the ideals and the love he had.

Fight For Kevin. It sounded pretty good... But that sleep deprived night made me think a little more. It made me think, I don't want to feel like I'm just fighting anymore. I want to live. Live our lives the way Kevin would have and how he would want us to. I remembered that night something that had happened recently. I had signed up for a brain cancer charity event called Badger Challenge. when I showed up to get my racing bib, they had signs you could make to put along the route people would be traversing. The theme of the signs was, "who do you race for?" I race for Kevin. I remember writing it down and without any warning starting to cry. Thinking about this made me realize that so many people are the "survived by" of their loved ones who have passed from cancer and it's hard to move on with your life. We are forced to do so in many ways but it's terribly difficult. So rather than make this charity about fighting something, I decided it needed to be about living. Living to find treatments and cures for brain cancer. Living for someone. Living to carry on their memories. Living to be their for them when they're going through the fight themselves. Living to help others find what they need. So I choose to Live For KWags. Who do you live for?