Dustin’s Promise

Sometimes I get asked what was the promise I made to Dustin. It was 1999 when he passed away. I was about to turn 10, he would have been 6 in July of that year. We barely knew what was happening. My uncle Mike had a long talk with Dustin about Jesus and Heaven in case something happened. He understood as best as a 5 year old could when contemplating his own mortality. St. Jude sent us home to receive chemotherapy but Mom thinks that they knew more than they were willing to tell. Honestly, what good would it have done? We came home the day before he died. Just to clear things up though, I never made a promise.

I have fathered two children, joined our family’s business, married a girl I went to pre-school with. I’ve captained a football team, won state championships, traveled the south playing baseball with the guys I grew up with. Now I’m watching my daughter begin playing softball herself. Maybe I’ll watch her do the same. All that was AFTER my sixth birthday.

Dustin’s Promise is not a promise I made to him, it’s all the things he could have been.

Maybe he could have played sports, raised a family, or traveled the world. Who knows? Dustin loved people, never met a stranger. He always loved to travel. He was meticulous in the way he dressed himself. He always wanted his shirt tucked in, his belt on, and his Nike hat. He had to have brand names like Nike, Tommy Hilfiger at the time. He loved everyone, I’m sure they say that about every child, but he was different. He worried about people. He was concerned about people while he was battling cancer. He checked on the kids he was in treatment with. If his favorite nurses weren’t at work he would ask “Where’s Nurse Linda? Where’s Nurse Valerie?”. To be worried about other people, at 6, while you’re at a research hospital fighting cancer? Seems to me that his compassion for others, at the very least, showed promise in who he could have become. In that same spirit of resilience, goodwill, hope, and joy in the face of such sorrow, is why I started Dustin’s Promise

-John Hamm, Founder