Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
Editor’s Note: Randy Tyner’s late wife Jacqueline was a recipient helped by the South High Marathon Dance in 2014. She passed away in June of 2015. Last Friday, Randy Tyner donated $10,000 to the 2016 South High Marathon Dance. Last year, the couple also donated. We asked Randy about their SHMD experience. Here’s what he wrote.
By Randy Tyner, Special to The Chronicle
One reason I’m committed to supporting the mission of SHMD [South High Marathon Dance] is my deep, personal gratitude. When Jacqueline was diagnosed with leukemia and she was going through the months-long process of a stem cell transplant, the support we received from SHMD helped make it possible for me to stay by her side the entire time.
But aside from my personal experience with the organization’s power to help, what I love about SHMD is that it’s alive. It’s an ongoing community of people (youth and adults) working together to help take care of those who are suffering.
In life, sometimes we’re in positions to give, and sometimes we’re the ones in need of being carried. SHMD gives us the opportunity to give without reservation, and to receive with dignity.
A friend asked me if I donated the money in order to pay back what we’d received. And while there’s an element of truth in that idea, it carries with it a connotation of debt that I don’t feel. I feel grateful for what we were given, and I feel grateful to have enough to share.
Jacqueline wanted to be a nun when she was young, because she felt so much love for others. Instead, she chose to share her love through our family and community. And now, even through her death, she’s continued to enrich the lives of others.
There’s a verse that says, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” When Jacqueline died, I was left with the freedom to share more with others than had she lived.
When Jacqueline’s mother died, 100 Malawian orphans found themselves with a new home, a home with real beds and warm meals. Through Jacqueline’s passing, there are now hundreds of villagers, in a drought-plagued region of Malawi, that have wells, providing fresh, clean water.
Through her death, there’s a Malawian friend of ours with a new irrigation system for his village.
And through SHMD, someone nearby, with needs of their own, will receive a gift. But none of this is due to a sense of debt, or of altruism. It feels good to give in love. And it feels good to receive love.
I guess what moves me most about SHMD is that if the giving and receiving of love is what makes life rich and meaningful, then SHMD is a catalyst for that. It gives all of us, on both sides of the experience, opportunities for richer, more meaningful lives.
Copyright © 2016 Lone Oak Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.
