Feedback Forum

So we just got back from a trip to Modesto to visit Amy’s family (Stacemom’s side) and it was the first time Alex has seen most of them since this all began. Amy’s Uncle Tony said something when we first saw him that really struck us, he said  “Even though we haven’t seen you guys much since this all started, we want you to know that we feel like we’re right there with you everyday. With the blog, the way Alex writes: whether its’s the personal stories, the videos, the way he educates, it makes us feel so connected to you guys and we’re grateful for that and we’re praying for you everyday.”  As we saw more of the family, we got even more praise for the blog. People would tell us their favorite posts and each of them had a pretty remarkable understanding of what we were going through, even though we hadn’t talked to them that much, we realized that they had gathered all of it from what they’ve taken from the blog. This blew our minds. Not only did we feel humbled by their encouragement and support but we also couldn’t believe that people cared that much and were keeping up with us regularly (we also found this to be the case when we were up in Seattle). Even though we are far away (distance wise) from most of the people that are reading it, we do still feel connected with everyone.

When we first started the blog, we had no plans for it besides it being a way to update people and ask for prayer, but then it became something “Moore”. Recently, we remembered the moment when we realized that that had become the case. It was when Alex wrote the post “Smile”. After it went up we started getting calls, e-mails, comments, and random people coming up to us at church (or wherever we were) telling us about how much they loved that story. We had a feeling then about how far reaching our story was becoming. From that day forward, we decided we would start chronicling our journey and make it a place for people to visit and reach out to us on a regular basis. It helped us to feel connected to everyone that we love and we even started making friends with people that had stumbled across it. We believe it also has played a big role in Alex’s recovery thus far, because he has been able to channel his creativity and improve his spirits through being able to do what he does best which is inspire and entertain. We have since accepted the fact that we have (Alex especially) become bloggers. It was something that we never really aspired to be but something we are thankful that we stumbled into. Writing and speaking opportunities have been coming our way and we’re even in the beginning stages of expanding the blog into an “online journal” (sorta like the Huffington Post if you will) for brain tumor patients, survivors, and caregivers that will hopefully have it’s own charitable arm for brain cancer research as well. More to come on this in the future…

When we first started talking about getting married (6 years ago), we had a discussion about what type of couple we envisioned being. We expanded on that a little and said, “What would a “successful” life look life for us?” We both thought about it for awhile and both genuinely agreed (with conviction),  that if we could live a life together where we serve our family, friends, and community on a daily basis as well as inspire and empower others to look beyond themselves and find hope in God and be loving to others (we put no specifics of how that might play out in our lives). If we could do that, plus have children and enjoy what we did for a living, then that would be our definition of success.  At this moment, the blog is making that vision a reality for us and we are extremely grateful for that. We’ll never fully understand the reach that this is making, but we are humbled (and excited) that it is even impacting anyone in the first place. In fact Amy’s grandmother (“Gammy” is what we call her) told us a story when we were up in Modesto about how she was at church a couple months ago and a young man, a little bit older than us, with a young son, came up to her and somehow we came up in their conversation. Gammy told him the story about the night before the first surgery when we had over 30 people in the room to pray for Alex. After the prayer, Alex said that he saw our situation as an honor, and felt privileged that God would use him and his journey with this disease to impact others. Recently that young man tracked Gammy down and told her that when she told him that story that it changed his life and he has chosen to have the same attitude with his “situation”. It turns out that he is dealing with kidney failure and is in desperate need of a transplant. Are you freakin’ kidding me? Tears immediately came to our eyes when we heard that story. It was a tangible example of what Alex meant when he made the comment initially, but we feel that this young man’s (this father’s) “situation” is much more dire than Alex’s, and here he is saying that his entire life and outlook has changed as result of something that Alex said, we couldn’t believe it. All we can say is that God is good. After telling us that story, Gammy then chewed out Alex for posting the Ice Cube “Today was a Good Day” music video the other week because of it’s explicit content (Even though Alex put a warning above the video). He posted it because of the nostalgia factor. It was an anthem of our youth and it was interesting because that post was also one of the most “Retweeted” (Twitter) posts we’ve written, so it just goes to show all the different generations that our story is reaching.

Having said all that, we’re asking for some participation and feedback from you with this post. As we start the process of “expanding”, we would like to know what type of “content” we’ve provided that you find yourself responding to (internally) the most. Please let us know what posts you’ve enjoyed the most, been impacted by the most, maybe forwarded to others. You can also let us know if there are other things you’d hope to hear from us that we haven’t yet provided on here. Just leave comments down below if you can. We want you to know that we are still super appreciative that you are still following us and that it’s a little awkward for us to even ask for feedback but unfortunately we’re finding that it goes with the territory of being “bloggers”.

Thanks for being on this journey with us.

Much Love,

Alex and Amy

Category : Alex, Amy, Hope Train
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