iron like lion in zion
nothing really matters love is all you need, everything I give you all comes back to me…well do you believe it or do you not? May not surprise you at all, but I do. So you’re probably wondering about all the bad stuff that comes to me, you know, the health scare stuff, the so-calleds who chase after your man or your woman, the people who lie, the people who’re fake, the people you give your heart to and they use it to stab you in the ribs, you know, the kinda peeps we all meet every day of our lives, you’re wondering, what’d I give out to attract that?
Honey that’s a good question. The minute I point the finger, the road of my life, sang Bob Marley, becomes rocky. The second I criticise someone, someone else is judging me. I think about this everyday and I think about pulling back that heavy curtain made of solid velvet jealousy to let the light in. But it’s hard, dammit, it’s so hard not to slap a sentence on some fabulously famous rugby player who won’t sign a photo to save a terminally ill three year old when other people are offering blood from their bodies for her….it’s not just a full time job to not judge, it’s a lifetime’s work.
But so we get to the real crux of this post. Leah. Three years old, heart like a lion, strength of one too. Got leukaemia. Bad. I mean, BAD. To her, it’s just her sore leg. To everyone else, she is something we struggle to understand. How she can endure lumbar punctures (yes plural) and hours and hours of chemo everyday and still smile for the camera; how it’s all just a bit of an adventure even though it hurts a wee bit; how she still has spirit and we throw ours to the void in the face of her adversity.
BKS was started out of a love of Leah. And the desire to help her family, who had to give up work to be with her throughout her treatment (and as I write this it’s still ongoing). And the subsequent desire to help other children in the same situation. BKS is something I think I have been waiting my whole life to do. It is not easy yet at the same time it feels like I was born to do it. But I struggle with those who ignore requests for help and we don’t ask for money. And I try not to judge. But it happens.
I may be as weak as a ten day old kitten when it comes to personal relationships, but when it comes to Leah and kids like her, I’m Marley’s lion. BKS may be just one more foundation out there trying to help kids, but this one is born of love. There are people around the world who have never met Leah who are turning themselves inside out for her because I asked them to. This is not the time to condemn those who don’t or won’t help. This is the year of the lion, the iron zion lion. This is it.