{"id":685,"date":"2013-02-23T00:12:26","date_gmt":"2013-02-23T00:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.com\/?p=685"},"modified":"2013-02-23T00:12:26","modified_gmt":"2013-02-23T00:12:26","slug":"the-biggest-little-fan-the-last-reeds-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/?p=685","title":{"rendered":"The biggest “little” fan . . . the last Reed’s Run"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sawyer's<\/a>When we first envisioned doing something to fund the Reed Stevens Memorial Scholarship, we never saw an event as big as what Reed\u2019s Run became.\u00a0 The four runs produced many different results: some expected and others pleasant surprises.\u00a0 The obvious by-products were a successful fundraising venture and a community event enjoyed by many. Among the unexpected were the blossoming of friendships and the renewal of friendships from long ago.<\/p>\n

One of those friendships was rekindled in those early days in the hospital when Sawyer was still in the Intensive Care.\u00a0 It was something akin to\u00a0the proverbial blessings that those who have walked through tragedy really have eyes and hearts open enough to see.\u00a0 The connection was with one of Sawyer\u2019s godmothers.<\/p>\n

As the days drew closer to the final run, we realized that we were going to have a house filled with loved ones as well as a few hotel rooms with other loved ones.\u00a0 For those travelling from far away, we decided to send out an agenda of what we would be offering\u00a0in the way of\u00a0entertainment.\u00a0 After working set-up all day Friday, a break would take place to cheer on Sawyer and the Lakers with a September\/October birthday party at the fire pit in Reed\u2019s garden afterwards.<\/p>\n

To be honest, we didn\u2019t think many would take us up on the offer for the football game.\u00a0 To our surprise, there were 15 people that comprised the cheering section for number 74.\u00a0 One among our group was Sawyer\u2019s little god-brother, S, proudly clad in Laker blue and waving homemade flags emblazoned with Sawyer\u2019s name and school “mascot”. S cheered on the team, and more than once he wondered aloud why the team or coaches weren\u2019t listening to his flag as the score did not reflect his impassioned cheering. Sadly, Sawyer didn\u2019t play for three fourths of the game, and for a while I felt like we had asked these loved ones from Georgia, California, western North Dakota, and Florida to come for nothing.\u00a0 Then in the final few minutes, Sawyer and the other Junior Varsity guys went in.<\/p>\n

All of a sudden an amazing tackle happens, and over the loudspeaker we hear, \u201cTackle made by Sawyer Stevens.\u201d\u00a0(This, of course, reads better if you do the loudspeaker echoing voice\u00a0out loud.) \u00a0The Sawyer Stevens entourage cheered exuberantly, but none compared to little S.\u00a0 He jumped up and down, declaring for all who would listen, \u201cSawyer listened to my flag. I knew it would work!\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t really care what others would call the play of that game.\u00a0 For one sophomore player, that was definitely it.<\/p>\n

For the trip to the birthday bash, Sawyer rode with his god-family the 30 miles back to Marshall.\u00a0 Even though I wasn\u2019t there, the story told by his godmother about the trip home was priceless.\u00a0 Huddled together in the back of the car with their heads touching were two brothers (one in high school and one in elementary) deep in conversation and game playing.<\/p>\n

For the one who misses his big brother every day, it was a model example of brotherly love and what used to be.\u00a0 For the rest of us, it was a reminder that even though the circumstances aren\u2019t what we had planned, God\u2019s vision of family is BIGGER<\/b> than we could ever imagine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we first envisioned doing something to fund the Reed Stevens Memorial Scholarship, we never saw an event as big as what Reed\u2019s Run became.\u00a0 The four runs produced many different results: some expected and others pleasant surprises.\u00a0 The obvious by-products were a successful fundraising venture and a community event enjoyed by many. Among the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[78,93,201,209,224,233,244,257,262,274,294,379,388,412,526,609],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}