Big Shoes is not just a story of death and loss, it is about prevailing and finding true happiness, not in spite of what happens to us but because of what happens to us.
All profits from the sale of Big Shoes benefit The DON'T WAIT Project®.
Have you met Darius Weems? Have you heard his music? Have you watched his film? Better yet, have your heard his laughter? He’s a man who is not waiting for a disease that took his brother’s life to claim his own. He’s living, he’s rapping, and he’s enjoying the ride on the path to greatness.
STRONGER
Nearly 2,000,000 views says that if everyone who watched Chris Rumble's Seattle Children's Hospital video donated $1 to the children's cancer research hospital of their choice, we'd have a STRONGER fight against cancer. DON'T WAIT® to do your part.
Audio
Dr. Oz talks about DWP®
Dr. Oz is host of the Daytime Emmy Award-winning The Dr. Oz Show, and he is also one of the most well-known cardiac surgeons currently practicing in the United States. Hear what he has to say about The DON'T WAIT Project® and what it means for your heart.
Where would you go if you’d never been away from home? What would you do if you didn’t have much time left? DARIUS WENT WEST! Meet 15-year-old Darius Weems from Athens, Georgia, who was born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), the most common fatal genetic disorder to affect children worldwide. In 1999, he watched his beloved older brother, Mario, pass away from the same disease at age 19. Soon after, Darius lost use of the muscles in his legs and had to begin using a wheelchair.
A group of Darius’ college-age friends decided there was no need for his quality of life to disintegrate along with his muscles. In the summer of 2005, they rented a wheelchair-accessible RV and took Darius, who had never seen mountains, the ocean or even crossed a state line, on the adventure of a lifetime. The ultimate goal of their 7,000-mile cross-country journey was to reach Los Angeles and convince MTV’s hit show “Pimp My Ride” to customize Darius’ wheelchair. Along the way, they evaluated wheelchair accessibility in America, celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and raised awareness of DMD—particularly among a generation not familiar with Jerry Lewis. They also found joy, brotherhood and the knowledge that life, even when imperfect, is always worth the ride.
The Philosophy Behind this Film This documentary is designed to entertain as well as educate the masses about DMD by telling a story through the lens of friendship. In addition to hilarious footage from this all-male road trip, Darius Goes West features personal stories from two other families affected by DMD, as well as an in-depth interview with a medical expert discussing promising new research that offers hope for treatment and possibly even a cure.
This film focuses on ability, not disability. Darius Weems is no DMD poster child. He’s a typical teenager who wakes up grouchy and curses on occasion. But audiences love his sense of humor and his megawatt smile. And instead of feeling sorry for Darius because he is terminally ill, viewers share his excitement as he discovers America.We know—and Darius knows—that DMD won’t be cured in his lifetime. Nevertheless, Darius took a road trip to raise awareness of his disease in hopes of benefiting those with DMD who follow in his footsteps—and to prove that life has no limits, even for those in a wheelchair.
Beneficiary Darius Goes West is a nonprofit film. We are a 501(c)(3) and a charitable subsidiary of Charley’s Fund, a nonprofit foundation that funds medical research into a treatment or cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. DMD. is the most common and aggressive form of muscular dystrophy. Charley’s Fund has spent more than $12 million on medical research. For the first time in the history of the disease, human clinical trials have begun.
Earlier this year, Darius signed a record deal with New South Entertainment and recently released three inspirational rap songs oniTunes geared to his core crowd of young and impressionable youth. And once again, he is taking to the road to raise awareness of his disease (Duchenne muscular dystrophy) and inspire and connect with students and educators across the Northeast.
Come back for more with Darius when he talks with Lisa Bradshaw about how far he’s come and shares his story of making a film that made him a hero—a hero championing against DMD as he raps his way to the top.
The 5th floor sign I photographed eights year ago at UAB.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
When I left Birmingham, Alabama on Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004, I never expected to return. Wesley died on Easter Sunday and I never thought I would return to where so much was lost and left behind.
Sometime last year, soon after I finished writing Big Shoes and founding The DON’T WAIT Project®, I started considering what I was asking of others. Through the voice of the DWP®, I was asking people to face their fears, raise their expectations, and chart a new path for their lives. This got me thinking about my own fears, my own unfinished business, and my own path. Through the process of digging deep within myself, it became obvious to me that I needed to return to the University of Alabama Hospital as part of my own growth and progress. It seemed a necessary stop along the ongoing path to greatness many of us strive to achieve.
I did not know in what capacity I would return. It did not make sense to me to just show up and walk the fifth floor where Wesley had died. It did not make sense to say hello to the nurses and doctors still working at UAB in the transplant unit, then say good bye just as quickly. I wanted my return to mean something. I wanted it to somehow make a difference. More than anything else, I wanted it to honor Wesley.
About that time, Jody White, the nurse manager of the heart and lung transplant unit at UAB, heard about Big Shoes and the DWP®. He called and reintroduced himself to me (he was at UAB the day Wesley died), and we quickly discussed my return and how it would best serve the hospital, and its providers and patients. Soon after we talked, I was invited to partner with Wesley’s critical care physician Dr. Keith Wille, MD, and present Wesley’s case as part of a Schwartz Center Rounds®.
Within a few months, I found myself sitting in an airport on my way to Birmingham, AL. For a moment, just before boarding the plane, I tearfully questioned why I had put such pressure on myself to return and wondered if helping others at my own excruciating expense was worth it. Did I really need to go back to the place that took me eight years to truly leave behind? Did I need to shake the hands of the people who had tried to save Wesley, see the room where he had died, and see the picture the staff had placed on the wall of the conference room in his honor? Did I need to do all of this? Hadn’t I done enough? Been through enough?
I landed in Birmingham from Houston (my four-day stop along the way) an hour later, and after a bumpy flight and a bumpy start to what I feared might level me all over again, I felt steady. I felt certain that good could come from my return, and I could leave there knowing I had done the right thing by going. I decided to take the time to revisit and recollect the time we had spent there.
I drove by the apartment where we had lived—the apartment where we had received the phone call from the transplant coordinator that there was a donor lung match for Wesley just three days after he was listed for transplant.
I gasped at the sight of the back door—the door I had rushed through to be by his side when, more than once, a nurse had called to say he had quickly become critical when just hours before he had been doing well enough for me to leave the hospital to spend time with our confused and struggling five-year-old son.
I walked the fifth floor of the transplant unit, saw the corner of the hallway where I many times stood silently staring at the wall while trying to compose myself and gather the strength to fight for Wesley another moment, another hour, another day.
I quietly excused myself after Wesley’s nurse Allyson and I discussed the details of the last moments of his life and it became too much to bear. I retreated to a different corner near the auditorium where I would soon join Dr. Wille and share Wesley’s story with a room full of healthcare providers who might be changed by what we had endured and become better doctors and nurses because of my willingness to return to UAB and share his story.
I cried silent tears as I stood in the doorway of the room where Wesley had died. As I briefly stood in the empty room, I considered how far I had come, how much time had passed, and the work I had done to heal our lives—Hunter’s and my life. As I looked at the clock on the wall and as the second hand slowly moved from one short, black line to the next, I thought about the passing of time and how it’s inevitable. We have no control over it. Time is going to pass no matter how we are using that time, and without doing the work it takes to truly heal our lives and survive what seems impossible to endure, we just have a compilation of days, month, and years. No progress. No healing. No greatness.
Returning to Alabama was a lesson in perseverance for me. It clarified the progress I have made and the work that is still ahead. I poured my heart out in that auditorium, and I left there stronger than when I had arrived. It was a full circle experience if I have ever had one.
It’s my hope that The DON’T WAIT Project® will bring others to a similar gateway to progress and healing on their desired path to greatness.
The live in the most peaceful, beautiful, inviting town I have ever visited. That’s why I bought a house the week we arrived for our visit and left the city I had called home for more than a decade. I took a chance that my gut feeling about this lovely town was the answer to only one of the one million questions that were racing through my mind at the time. I trusted myself in a time when there wasn’t much left of me. All I had left, it felt at times, was our son, and that was surely worth everything to me and to finding true happiness again. Little by little, day by day, year by year.
It’s been nearly eight years and it just feels like time to return to my home away from home because even though Wesley died and that changed every thing I ever thought or felt about the life we once shared there, it isn’t true that you can’t go home again. You can go home again.
Houston is my favorite city in the world. I know. The weather, the cement, the Bush’s (depending on your political preference)—the many things that Houston lacks that many cities in the world have in abundance does not sway me from the parts of the city that have meant the most to me. The first time I was shown the skyline, it was a beautiful night after a weekend in Galveston at Mardi Gras. Wesley was like a kid in a candy store, wanting to show me all the city had to offer and the parts of it he loved the most. He was my tour guide and my realtor, showing me where we could live, what we could become, where we would call home, if only I would trust my gut and answer only one of the one millions questions that were racing through my mind at the time.
I made one of the single most important and pivotal decisions of my life: I chose Wesley. I chose him above reason. Above geography. Above my parents. Above my education. I chose him because I knew everything else would work itself out if only we followed our hearts and took the same leap, at the same time, toward the same place.
Every time I have landed in Houston since Wesley died, I have felt like he is there waiting for me. Ready to show me around again, to look at what’s changed, to drive me past the house we shared together—where Hunter was born—and to remind me of everything I moved there for in the first place in 1992—20 years ago.
I don’t like to leave my lovely little town or the wonderful family I now have, but it’s time to go back to where it started and ended for us, to honor Wesley and life we shared and fought for, and honestly, to just relax and visit my friends and family who I have missed so much. Wesley will be there when the plane lands and guide me as he did during my first visit more than two decades ago to show me what I’ve missed. Only this time, I think I will show him a few things as well: I’ll show him how far I’ve come and the work I have done in his honor. I’ll go to Houston and to UAB, share our story, then return to my lovely town and my wonderful family strengthened by the experience.
All of this, he’d dig beyond just about anything else.
This is what it’s all about. Someone who is half way finished reading Big Shoes has become a bone marrow donor and an organ donor all in one day while affirming her empathy for others. I just had to share a recent post on our Facebook page.
I have always felt blessed to be a person that has overwhelming empathy and a lack of judgement, I have always tried to put myself in the other person’s shoes… BIG shoes, which I am half way through, has changed me forever. I am so amazed and saddened by the way you are able to express the fear the joy the waiting and the agony of losing your true love… I am also tickled with your story of HOPE and how to not lose it!!! Thank you for sharing your experience so that I could try and understand what it is like for families in wait and ones that have lost… I went onto the marrow registry today as well as updating my donor info to make sure they are able to take whatever they can in the event I pass away, I encouraged my friends on fb as well. Thank you for that nudge! I will write again when I finish your book.
Tune in today for DWP founder Lisa Bradshaw’s Life with Lisa Show. She’ll talk with Aurea McGarry about all she’s overcome to create the Live Your Legacy Summit and how you can get involved no matter where you live. Also on today’s show, Bradshaw will talk with local girl Anna Cate about how she’s paving her own way in the music industry with a harp and a dream. Find out how you can HELP!
That’s today at 1:10 PM PST. Listen LIVE at 560 KPQ AM or www.kpq.com
Over the years, I have attended a few women’s show and several events with guest speakers. Sometimes I forget how much work goes into such a production. The Northwest Women’s Show, for example, booked me as a speaker probably ten months ago, just weeks after last year’s show. And I am just one of many, many speakers attending this year.
I look forward to visiting the visitor’s booths, talking with entrepreneurial women who are going for it, and giving thanks to the coordinators who invited me to speak. I’ll sign books, shake hands, and share Big Shoes and The DWP—all things I consider a privilege to get to do on a Sunday afternoon.
Hope you can stop by if you are in the area. Here are the details: Sunday, March 4 at 1 p.m. in the author’s corner at CenturyLink Event Center, Seattle, WA. All profits benefit The DON’T WAIT Project®.
I believe in the third party endorsement and how one interview can make a difference. Working with Positive Impact Magazine has been a pleasure. We share the common goal of making a difference and sharing the work of others who are trying to do the same. In the latest issue, there’s a three-page spread about The DON’T WAIT Project® and Big Shoes, and it looks FANTASTIC! We can only hope that as their readership grows, so will the number of supporters of the Project.
Look for the DON’T WAIT® column, beginning in the next issue. Send us your stories so we can share your message with our readers, and you can inspire others to get up and live with the DON’T WAIT® attitude every day.
Then there’s this little diddy—my latest print interview
On the 8-year anniversary of Wesley’s double lung transplant, I have to ask: Are you a registered organ donor?
It’s the 8-year anniversary of my late husband Wesley’s double lung transplant. This time of year triggers my memory of the six weeks of grueling complications he endured, only to die on Easter Sunday. I’ve healed since his death. It’s taken a long time, but I’m happy now and honestly feel grateful for all I have learned from the experience. The tribute I produce each year, with varying messages each time, is not about being stuck. It’s about moving forward. It’s about sharing important information about how everyone can help impact the lives of complete strangers, giving them a second chance—a chance to fight for life, no matter the outcome.
Today, I read in shock and deep sadness of the death of Jeffrey Zaslow. He was the best selling author of many books, including The Last Lecture and his most recent book The Magic Room. Just last month, I interviewed him for the third time on my show. My last interview with him has not yet even aired. My second interview with him also included my friend Jennifer Rasmussen, as we discussed lifelong friendship and its many rewards and obstacles.
At one point, I sent a quote from his book The Girls from Ames to a friend with whom my friendship was failing. His words resinated with both of us and, after months of her not returning my calls, she finally responded to me and we soon reconciled. I was grateful to borrow his words when I could not find my own.
He wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal that had heart and deep sentiment. People counted on him to tell their own stories with truth and dignity. His words were beautifully crafted and meaningful as each story he told made him even more appreciative of his own family. Last we spoke, both on and off the air, he talked about his three daughters and all he has tried to do to learn from them as much as guide them.
An author takes intimate care when being part of designing each book’s cover. It was Jeffrey Zaslow’s words of endorsement and support that I ultimately chose for the cover of my own book Big Shoes. He wrote: Lisa talks and thinks and writes with her heart.
If it’s possible, his words mean even more to me now than when I first read them. I never met him but he was one of my mentors, although I’m not sure he knew it.
I asked him what it was like for him to co-author Randy Pausch’s book The Last Lecture. He spent hours with a man who had only days, possibly months to live. He must have imagined what it was like for Randy’s wife and children. He said it taught him even more to appreciate his life, his family, and his time left on earth.
Today, I am reminded that we never know how long we will be here or the impact we will have. I’m inspired by the words he left behind.
