PDF Version of Letter
March 25, 2010
Re: The Kate Shea Foundation presents “7th Annual Bay Head 5k”
Dear Coveted Local Business Owner,
This is the first time I have gotten to pen this letter. The truth is that I probably could have been able to write it any of the preceding 6 years. However, I think the mourning process blended with a degree of immaturity on my part translated to it taking seven years for me to write this engagement letter. Regardless, here it is.
This May 22, 2010, at 8:30 a.m., a race will begin at the Bay Head Fire House on Bridge Avenue for the 7th year. I have attached a comprehensive sponsorship deck for you to review at your convenience, and I can say with ease and sincerity on behalf of the Kate Shea Foundation that any generosity on your behalf will most certainly not be overlooked. In short, nothing but love from our ends for anything coming from your end.
What I really wanted to do with this engagement attempt was to remark on the person for which the foundation was created, my sister Katie. I often find myself speaking to people about her disease, death or how we have dealt as a family with such a tragic and untimely loss. That’s normal I suppose. Untimely deaths are much different than timely deaths, they just are. I don’t think it would be presumptuous for me to say that Kate’s family and friends have done just about as good as human beings can do with just about as bad a break as human beings can get. The Bay Head 5K was our vehicle, it was a necessity. The idea of spending the rest of our lives drowning in the memories of her illness and death as opposed to remembering the celebration of her life just wasn’t in the cards.
I am unsure how many people will read these words as I sit and type this in my office, but I would be willing to bet just about anything, that everyone who does has experienced cancer. Be it losing a loved one, sitting by their side in treatment, sitting by someone else’s side holding their hand as they lose a loved one. Cancer has managed to permeate almost all of our lives. I make sure to never compare one person’s pain and loss to another’s, but it is impossible to underestimate the effects that this disease has had on us as a people. Tragically, longtime Bay Head residents Dorcas and Calvin Beatty lost their wonderful daughter Leigh to Leukemia just this week. Our thoughts and our prayers go out to the Beatty family during their time of immeasurable pain.
My sister was one of the most beautiful women this Earth has been lucky enough to say walked on it. I know that as her brother I’m subjective, but you ask anyone who knew Katie and you wont get a word or sentence in explanation, you will get a story. She was drop dead gorgeous physically. And, I’m talking Cindy Crawford and Elle MacPherson gorgeous, not just gorgeous. She was as so full of positivity and light, love and laughter. She was one of the people that when you walked away after meeting her, both men and women found themselves asking, “What just happened? Who was that person?” She was the reason the cliche “beautiful inside and out” was created.
Katie was also one of the most giving people in the world, and not just to people. My Father was forced to deal with the rescue and eventual raising of close to 30 cats she rescued from the streets. She is the sole reason I am the animal lover that I am today.
There isn’t a day that I don’t remember her and not a night that I don’t pray to her as I fall asleep. She has in many ways become my religion. She also has made each day easier than the last one, and I’ll thank her one day when we meet again.
In closing, anything that you could provide to the Kate Shea Foundation through the 7th Annual Bay Head 5k will help us beat the disease that took our Katie’s life. Come out, come to the beach, come run with us, come walk with us, come move and remember. Those who have been, I need not convince as they already understand what a wonderful day it is. For those who have not, I truly hope you can make it out May 22, 2010.
Sometimes this life is hard. It brings us to our knees, makes us cry and question ourselves and continually ask ...why? But sometimes, if you look at it just right and catch it at the right time, this life is so unbelievably beautiful and we understand why we are here. May 22nd will be one of those days.
You have my sister Katie’s promise on that.
Very truly yours,
Timothy J. Shea
