Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 172

“I’ve been writing for twenty-five years. I just finished my...

“I’ve been writing for twenty-five years. I just finished my second novel. I had a really severe anxiety attack right before my deadline. I thought I was having a heart attack. I could barely breathe. I couldn’t calm down. Part of it was just the pressure of the deadline. But another part of it was the pressure to do something great. I feel like I’ve always been ‘almost there.’ I think I’m still trying to prove I’m a professional. I’ve always been on the playing field, but every time I get up to bat, the game gets cancelled for rain. I’m hoping to finally break through. I don’t know what form that will take. Maybe a bestseller, or a great review, or an invitation to sit on a panel. When I read interviews with successful authors, most of them point at a specific event, and say: ‘After that happened, I never looked back.’ And that’s what I want. To never look back.”

“I’ve always believed in heaven. But it was so hard to lean on...

“I’ve always believed in heaven. But it was so hard to lean on that understanding after my father passed away. I was a Daddy’s girl. His death was an emotional clusterfuck. I could close my eyes and imagine he was somewhere else. But for the first time in my life, I couldn’t pinpoint his location on a map. And even though I’d taken an astronomy class in college, I couldn’t find him with a telescope. His absence was so much more real than I thought it would be. And it really shook my beliefs. I had to form a deeper understanding of what exactly ‘heaven’ means. And I’m still working on that. But I do still talk to him everyday. And I still believe that I’ll see him again.”

“When I was six months old, I was dropped off at an orphanage...

“When I was six months old, I was dropped off at an orphanage in Northern China with a little note pinned on my shirt. It only had the name of my village. The orphanage named me Gaoanna, which translates to ‘Girl From High Mountains.’ My mother decided to adopt me after she received my picture in the mail. She was 45 at the time. She had recently gotten divorced. She’d never had children. So it’s just been the two of us my whole life. I remember one time in high school, we got in an argument and my mom got very emotional. She started crying and said: ‘We can’t fight. It’s just the two of us. We have to stick together.’ At that moment I realized how much I had changed my mom’s life. She’d known from the start, of course. But it was something I needed to learn.”

“Mom turns 103 this August. I try to spend four afternoons a...

“Mom turns 103 this August. I try to spend four afternoons a week with her. There are a lot of things she doesn’t remember. But she’s great with nursery rhymes and songs. So we come down here and sing the ones that she remembers.”

“One night she asked me to tell her a bedtime story. And I...

“One night she asked me to tell her a bedtime story. And I started telling her this long story about Finnegan the Moose. Finnegan was a very dignified moose. But one day a crazy goose named Reginald came and sat on his head. Reginald was a very exciting goose. She was always making bold proclamations, and suggesting crazy adventures, and her tongue was always hanging out of her mouth. Finnegan would always do whatever Reginald suggested. And he’d pretend that he understood her even when she didn’t make sense. Because before Reginald landed on his head, Finnegan’s life was a little boring. It wasn’t a bad life. It was a normal moose life. He just hadn’t met his best friend yet. And he didn’t even know she was out there.”

“I thought we were just going to hang out at his sister’s place...

“I thought we were just going to hang out at his sister’s place today, but when I got there, Jim wasn’t there. But his sister gave me an envelope and told me that Jim was waiting for me at the place where we saw The Nutcracker. But when I got to the theater, only Jim’s parents were there. But they gave me another envelope and told me that Jim was waiting for me at our favorite coffee shop. But when I got to the shop, only MY parents were there. But they gave me another envelope and told me that Jim was waiting for me at the place where we first went row boating. And when I got here, Jim was here. And he gave me one last envelope. And I opened all four envelopes and it said: ‘Will,’ ‘You,’ ‘Marry,’ ‘Me!’”

“I’m going to build a rocket ship out of a trash can...

“I’m going to build a rocket ship out of a trash can and some wood and a bubble that never pops, and then I’m going to test it out to see if it goes somewhere, and if it goes somewhere, I’ll go to outer space and see things that people never even saw before.”

Over the past two weeks, 90,000 of you donated nearly $3.4...

Over the past two weeks, 90,000 of you donated nearly $3.4 million to help fight pediatric cancer. That is a staggering amount of money. Thank you. For those of you who might not have been in a place to contribute financially, thank you so much for engaging with this difficult material. The support and solidarity you showed these families was just as valuable as the money itself. You are the most caring community of people on the Internet. That’s no exaggeration. It’s proven by the tone of every comment section. And it’s proven by the $8.5 million you’ve given to charity in the past 1.5 years. You are such a compassionate collection of people, and I can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve contributed to HONY. Lastly, thank you so much to Dr. O'Reilly and the Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan Kettering for making this series possible. Special thanks to Nina Pickett and Rachel Corke, who paved every stone on my path.

I’ve got one last story to leave you with. Last night you raised over $1 million in honor of Max to research and cure DIPG—the brain tumor that killed him. Dr. Souweidane tells me that this money represents the “single greatest leap forward” in his personal crusade against DIPG. When I interviewed Julie a few days ago, we were sitting on a bench in Madison Square Park that had been dedicated to Max. The plaque listed all the things that Max loved, and one of those things was ‘millions.’ I asked Julie what that meant. ‘Max’s uncle Charley gave him one hundred dollars,’ she told me. ‘And Max kept saying that one day he’d have a million.’ So thank you, everyone, for giving Max his million.

I’ll be leaving the fundraiser up all day, for anyone who would still like to donate: http://bit.ly/1TpFcdy

(5/5) “I used to be a really happy person. I really was. I was...

(5/5) “I used to be a really happy person. I really was. I was the person who would walk outside and say: ‘Isn’t everything beautiful? Isn’t life wonderful? Aren’t we so lucky?’ I don’t have that sense of joy anymore. I remember the Mother’s Day before Max was diagnosed. It was four years ago. We were in this same park. On the lawn over there. It was beautiful. All three of us were there. Irene and I were in love. And Max was lying on my feet and pretending to fly in the air. And he was laughing so hard and I remember feeling so happy and full of life. It was the last moment that I truly felt joy.”

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Today is the last day of our fundraiser to aid Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in their fight against pediatric cancer. Over 70,000 people have donated and with over $2.6 million has been raised so far. Max’s tumor is the same tumor that Dr. Souweidane is working on curing. (See previous story). In fact, Max was supposed to be part of Dr. Souweidane’s first clinical trial but he passed away too soon. I promised Julie that all money raised during the telling of Max’s story would be given to Dr. Souwedaine and his colleagues to aid in their DIPG research. The gift will be given in Max’s honor. Even if it’s a small amount, please consider donating: http://bit.ly/1TpFcdy

(4/5) “I think I have post traumatic stress. I have so many...

(4/5) “I think I have post traumatic stress. I have so many horrible flashbacks. Two weeks after Max was diagnosed, he asked me if I’d be his Mommy forever. I said, ‘Of course I will.’ And he asked: ‘Even when I’m ninety?’ And I told him ‘yes.’ What was I supposed to say? And there were all the times he talked to me about the future. We’d talk about college. I just couldn’t tell him. God I was such a coward. I should have told him. I just couldn’t do it. Even toward the end. The day before he lost consciousness, I read his favorite book to him. It’s called Runaway Bunny. And the little bunny keeps threatening to run away. And the Mama bunny keeps saying: ‘Wherever you go, I will find you.’ Oh God, it was such a horrible way to die. He couldn’t speak or move or swallow or see. He basically starved to death. And the whole last week I’m whispering in his ear: ‘Let go, let go. Please Max, let go.’ My seven-year-old son. I’m telling him to let go. I mean, fuck. That’s not supposed to happen! And the whole time I never told him he was dying. I was such a coward. But he knew. He knew without me telling him. Because a couple weeks before he lost his speech, he asked me: ‘Mommy, do they speak English where I’m going?’”

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Today is the last day of our fundraiser to aid Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in their fight against pediatric cancer. Over 65,000 people have donated and we’ve raised over $2.3 million so far. Max’s tumor is the same tumor that Dr. Souweidane is working on curing. (See previous story). In fact, Max was supposed to be part of Dr. Souweidane’s first clinical trial but he passed away too soon. I promised Julie that all money raised during the telling of Max’s story would be given to Dr. Souwedaine and his colleagues to aid in their DIPG research. The gift will be given in Max’s honor. Even if it’s a small amount, please consider donating: http://bit.ly/1TpFcdy