Somehow along the timeline, Karlen and I seem to have adopted a personal charity. This spring she ran the Flying Pig Marathon for Team in Training for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She's also in charge of her school's Pasta for Pennies campaign. And I've mentioned my co-chairship of Princeton's phenomenal Pasta for Pennies campaign before, and I think this fall will be my first honest run at their Light the Night walk.It's sort of become our charity. It wasn't anything particularly intentional, and we haven't - thankfully - been personally touched by leukemia or anything, but it just sort of happened.
Today's post isn't about our choices, but I thought a little background was in order.
Today's post, rather, is about the film A Lion in the House. It's a documentary following five Cincinnati-area families whose children have been diagnosed with blood cancers (leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood cancers). The film follows them through six years of their journeys, documenting every up and down moment from the most hopeful to the most heart-wrenching.
On Wednesday night, Karlen and I (along with Becky - my PHS co-coordinator) were invited to see a seventy-five-minute version of the documentary down at the Aronoff Center. Wisely, the LLS put boxes of Kleenex in every row, because it is a hard watch. At the same time, it's an incredibly hopeful watch, too, and one that makes me want to work even harder toward the LLS's mission of curing, educating, and helping.
The full documentary will be shown on PBS on June 21st and 22nd (in two two-hour parts - check local listings for times). I would highly recommend it to anybody.
I'm also going to recommend the website MyLion.org as a way for people - particularly young people - to become more involved after seeing the documentary. It's a website set up by people associated with the filmmakers of the film. The site just went online today and is still getting some bugs worked out. Hopefully our Pasta for Pennies committee will be helping them test the site and get it fully operational.
If you would like to know more about A Lion in the House, please leave a comment and I'll email you back or check out any of the following websites:
- A Lion in the House official website
- Public Radio Echange's piece on the film (login to hear the stream)
- An excellent review of the film
- WCET's page on the film
- Independent Film's website on the film
- IndieWire's coverage of the film (mostly a review)
- Ordering info for the movie and associated book
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