A blog with a cause...

Just as any good older brother would, I had my suspicions about the man my sister fell in love with a few years ago.

Sure, they turned out to be wrong. Katie had met a good man, someone who loved her and treated her with respect. He was as different as on possibly can be from me, in terms of politics, body type, and hair (the poor bloke was always jealous of my mass of fro). Plus, he was British, and as hard as I tried to explain American football to him, he worked just as hard to teach me the wonders of cricket. I still have no idea what he was talking about, but if someone gave me one of those cool cricket bats, I think I could do damage to some intruders.

At first, however, I had my doubts about Richard. For one thing, his very name upset me. Only one person in my life is allowed to be called Richard, and that’s my Dad (note: I don't call my father by his first name, but you understand how this would be an issue). For my sister to love another man with the same name was just perverse. So, half joking and half impishly, I gave Katie’s Richard an American alias: Dicky. A good-natured guy, Dicky accepted his nickname, and to his credit, never showed any offense when I called him that.

Their relationship had been complicated, but intriguing. They met while my sister was abroad in London. Dicky was an Orthodox Jew, and though my sister’s Jewish values are more reformed or conservative, they fell in love. She came home, and with Internet video chats, they stayed in as much contact as one can for two people living on opposite sides of the ocean. He came here for Thanksgiving, she went there on other holidays, and for a while, it worked.

Yet this posting is in the past tense, and while I wish I were merely writing a tale about lovers parting ways, this story has a sad ending.

Eventually, Katie and Dicky did go their separate ways, and he found his niche when he came to the New York area to study. He fell in love again, this time marrying a fellow Orthodox Jew. He had his life together, and now he had the New York Mets, which for some unfathomable reason considering the influence of so many Engelhardts and their Red Sox loyalties, became his favorite team.

Then, one day, a stunning announcement. Katie learned that Dicky had been diagnosed with leukemia. I didn’t know how to react. He was out of her life, true, but he was her first real love. He seemed to be doing okay, getting chemo and dealing with the cancer with high spirits and great strength of faith.

About a year ago, right before Hannukah, the news reached us. He’d had some kind of setback, was rushed to the hospital, and in a moment, Dicky was gone. Richard had been younger than me, and cancer had never taken anyone so close to our family.

It is in Richard’s memory, along with the countless number of cancer victims and survivors I’ve written about as a journalist, that I invite you all to join myself and Journal Inquirer staffers in Relay for Life.

I’ve been pretty blessed in my life. Yes, I’ve been overweight since I was a kid, but now I feel good to the point of wanting to use this blog, as my newfound fitness, to promote a good cause. For those of you not familiar with Relay, it is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Most events run 24 hours. This event, Nov. 7 at Pratt and Whitney in East Hartford, will go for 12.

It works like this. A team is organized, and at least person has to walk the track for the duration of the event. You switch off team members throughout, and as long as someone is walking, you’re doing well. You raise money through pledges, and the link is here:

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?pg=entry&fr_id=16250

I hereby invite you to take part or give to the cause. Become a member of “JI News Cycle,” or simply make a pledge to help us kick cancer in the face. Either way, I’ll be at the Pratt and Whitney Hangar Museum from noon to midnight on Saturday, Nov. 7.

I’ll be doing it for Dicky and plenty of others, and I invite you to do the same.