Benny's Walk
In 2007 I was happy to reconnect with an old school friend, Lisa Watters, who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years, both growing up in Australia, we now lived in different parts of the world. Through Facebook, I learnt that she was now living in Chicago and had two girls and a boy who kept her busy. Shortly afterwards, Lisa posted that her world had been turned upside down as her son, Benny, had been diagnosed on 18th January 2008, shortly before his 3rd birthday, with DIPG, an incurable brain tumour. This news was devastating and hardly believable. To be a mother of two children who were (luckily) healthy, I could not even begin to imagine what Lisa and Brendan (her husband) and her family were going through. Lisa and Brendan posted Journal updates on a website called Caringbridge, which kept friends and family updated with Benny’s progress, with such raw honesty, emotion, strength and hope that it was heart wrenching to read. It became evident also how underfunded research into paediatric cancer is. To be a parent with a child suffering from this particular brain tumour is living in hope of a miracle - the only miracle being a cure to be found to save their child.
I now live in Scotland and in 2010 I ran a 5km Race for Life and asked Lisa if I could run for Benny. I was overwhelmed at the amount I raised, I was receiving £50 from school friends who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. Everybody was aware of Benny’s fight against this disease and it touched everybody who knew the family, past or present. I raised over £900, and the money went to Cancer Research UK. I was a bit disheartened when I found out that only a very small proportion of the money raised by Cancer Research UK actually went into paediatric cancer research as I am sure everybody that had sponsored me thought it would go towards paediatric cancer. Because of that, I decided that I wanted to do a charity event that all proceeds will go specifically towards paediatric cancer and then, with the help of several school friends around the world, the “Benny’s Walk” was created.
Sadly, on the 8th September 2010, Benny passed away, forever aged 5. No cure was found in time to save Benny,
On September 26th 2010 about 60 adults and children participated in the Scottish Benny Walk and we raised very close to an amazing £7000 which went to CCLG. The children did 3km and the mums did 10km and we were blessed with the most amazing sunny weather, seeing it was a day late in September in Scotland! I am sure Benny was looking down and smiling over us.
As the event included all the children, we decided to give them all a balloon and goodie bag at the end of their 3km walk. At the start of the walk, we released one single blue CCLG balloon into the blue sky for Benny and then we all started the event. It was a very emotional moment but the start of a wonderful, fun event that both adults and children loved! The children that were involved loved it and still speak of the Benny Walk. It was amazing to get the children involved in such a worthwhile cause, as they learn to appreciate how lucky they are to be healthy and learn to empathise that others may not be so lucky, and there are ways to help those who are unfortunately not as lucky as us.
Although, unfortunately we ended up walking in memory of Benny, we walked to raise money for paediatric cancer research for all children like Benny who are affected with this disease or will be in the future.
If it were not for Lisa and Brendan sharing their journey, which led ultimately, tragically to losing their son, I would never have been inspired to raise money for paediatric cancer because fortunately, I was blissfully unaware, and it didn’t affect me. Benny’s story and journey inspired a lot of people worldwide and hopefully, his short life will inspire people to raise money to fight this terrible disease.
Siobhian Brown
