Mark has an ongoing Memorial Fund as mentioned in a previous blog.Mark even contributed to it. He had over 200 dollars in his wallet when he died and this was added to his Memorial Fund. Mark was an avid reader which helped him get through the days after his cancer diagnosis and his prognosis of 3 months or less to live. Reading helped him get through all the chemotherapy and radiation, pain, vomiting and lack of energy, etc. Much of his memorial fund has gone to pay for bookcases at the Ramon Mario Bahena Rodriguez grade school in Reynosa, Mexico. We have sent many boxes of books to the school and are looking for more good children's books in Spanish to send.The school has gone from no library books to lots of books. Our goal is to be able to send at least one book home with each student soon and to increase this goal over time. There are approximately 320 students at this school so its a lot of books.
On March 21st we went to Mexico and dedicated the bookcases at the school. We took 4 computers to the school that Goodwill donated in Mark's memory. There were great festivities at the school with the children from each class doing presentations. I received a plaque for my concern for the education of the school's children and I must admit I didn't earn this plaque alone. I had a lot of help from memorial fund donors and people helping me collect books for the school and the Goodwill. I felt certain Mark was looking down and smiling in approval of this use of his memorial funds.
To those of you who have cancer and are looking for encouragement after receiving poor prognoses, I hope you will get some help from reading all of Mark's blog which addresses his 12 plus years of life after diagnosis and prognosis and up until his death from a non cancer cause.
