There are a lot of things that keep me healthy but my brother is, by far, the biggest thing that keeps me smiling, laughing and moving forward. So, I dedicate this blog to him. To you, Thomas James...you better read it.

Mr. Alpha Male who runs his mouth and often gets in trouble for it, just might be the most selfless person I know, which is saying a lot because my father has had that title for quite some time.

My brother has been described as one of the most brash individuals on the planet. I wouldn’t ever recommend to someone to go to him for some kind and caring words to soothe their souls (although sometimes he still surprises me with that one). There are many times that he doesn’t think things through before he says them and I end up crying because of what he’s said, to which he replies, “Katie, I’m not going to coddle you. You need to get tougher.” Ah, Thomas James.

From this one could get quite a misconception of who my brother is…

On a daily basis, his actions are screaming to the rest of the world…what an incredible person he is. For Christmas this year, Tom took his son to the pottery painting place and put his son and daughter’s handprints on a mug for me because he knows that I am completely enamored by his children. I’m sure getting a two-year old and month old baby’s hands covered in paint and onto a coffee cup was no easy task.

I could list a million things he’s done but this one tops the list. This story is so amazing that it could be a movie. I will try to do it justice, but my writing is just not that good.

It’s a random Thursday, in June, and a paper comes through Tom’s Navy mailbox. Check yes or no. Would you be willing to donate bone marrow if you were ever called to do so? Tom, thinking, sure, I’d do that, checks yes.

Years go by. The paper is long forgotten. Most people who check that box never get a phone call.

On Wednesday, Tom gets a call and they said, “We need your bone marrow. We’d like to fly you to Washington D.C to run some tests, to be sure.” Without so much as a hesitation, Tom says, “Ok, let’s do this.”

After a trip to D.C, without his wife and kids, the tests say he is a definite match for a man with Leukemia. People tell him, “This is a very painful process. Are you sure?” “Yeah, but it could save this guy’s life. Of course I’m in.” Some were surprised but I wasn’t, not even for a second.



After all, this was MY brother…the same brother who didn’t leave the side of the kid with Cerebral Palsy and a clef lip at Gramama Lesly’s House when he was 1. This was my brother, the one whose best friend had Down Syndrome in 2nd grade. This was my brother, the one who left his friends, and all of the girls who were falling at his feet, to sit with the handicap girl at church camp.

After a few weeks, the foundation flies Tom, Danielle and Philip to Washington D.C. Tom goes to the hospital each day for four days. They inject things into his veins that soften the bone marrow, basically liquefying it getting it ready to be pulled out. Day 1-No pain. Day 2-Some pain. Days 3 and 4-Tom is sitting for hours and hours and hours with needles in him in what he describes as the very worst flu you can possibly imagine. The marrow is literally being pulled from his veins. He hardly complains and reminds us that this is going to someone who is in much more pain than him. Someone he has never met in his life.


On the way back home, Tom is hurting, bad. He can hardly walk, let alone help Danielle with the bags and the baby. As they get on the plane a woman, in quite a condescending voice, says to Danielle, “I’d never let MY husband act like that and not help me at all.” If you only knew, Mrs. Judemental. If you only knew.

The American Cancer Society says that you are to have no contact with the donor or recipient until a year has gone by. After that time period, they can write each other, if they want.

A year goes by and Tom gets 2 letters in the mail, a letter from the wife of the recipient and from the sister of him. Reading them would bring the toughest man to tears. "Tom, you have given my brother hope. You are the reason he is still alive and we are forever in your debt."

He passed away shortly after that but, The Cartier’s recently got to meet his family. In the words of my sister-in-law, they are people we would have been best friends with. Wow.

I couldn’t feel more blessed that I share the same genes at this amazing person. I love you…my best friend, my favorite person on Earth, my brother.

You keep is as gangsta as it gets...and that's just this story. It doesn't even touch the dad he is...a blog for another day.