The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon was an annual tradition in my house growing up. I liked it for several reasons. First, I was allowed to stay up all hours of the night and secondly I was inspired by the video clips of the families battling muscular dystrophy.

For whatever reason, since becoming parents, Pam a I never really watched much of the telethon. It was about 2:00pm on Labor Day, neighbors and friends had come over earlier that day for a big breakfast. My nine year old son Trevor was sitting next to me on the couch and I decided to turn on the TV to watch a bit of the telethon. I asked Trevor to watch it with me so he could understand what MD is all about. He asked a few questions about why the children can't walk and soon he began to get restless and wanted to watch something else. I asked him to just wait until they showed a video clip of one of the families fighting MD so he could hear first-hand what they were going through. Within 10 minutes they played a video clip. Not unlike the countless dozens I had seen over the past 30 years or so. But this time I listened closely as I heard the father speak into the camera, "This can't happen to my family, this happens to someone else." Trevor seemed genuinely moved and he asked his Mom to call in and donate $10 of his allowance to the cause.

It was 2:00pm Tuesday afternoon when I got the call from Pam, almost exactly 24 hours from hearing those words echoing from a father's mouth, "this can't happen to my family..." that I learned disaster is no respecter of persons, tragedy had an appointment with me. And then I screamed these words out of my mouth, "No...this can't happen to my baby."