Stephen Sutton...the inspiration

I have to admit that its not very often I get emotional but as I type this sitting at my desk, I'm welling up again.

I'd just climbed into bed last night.  I logged into Facebook on my iPad and I noticed a post made by my friend Kelsey via the comedian Jason Manford.  I must admit I dont normally read everything which gets posted, especially the junk, circular stuff but this caught my eye...

Then onto Jason's timeline I went and I found this post from Stephen Sutton, quite frankly the bravest young man I've encountered...

 

I'm not ashamed to say that I was in floods of tears at reading that post.  Was an incredibly brave and inspiration young man.

Stephen Sutton has fought the Big C since the age of 15.  He was told it was incurable in Jan 2013, so he created a website called Stephens Story and made a bucket list of things he wanted to achieve, one of which was raising £10,000 for the charity which had supported him and his family, the Teenage Cancer Trust.  He smashed that target and had raised over £500k within a year.  His dream was to get the target to £1m and with Jason Manford helping out as best he could with an incredible effort of promoting Stephen's story and getting his celebrity pals involved, Stephen hit the target this morning.  On St George's Day.

I'll tell you what, it goes to show how brilliant our country is you know.  We get knocked all the time but when the chips are down, we really do come up with the goods.

I'm proud to be English today.  Not British but English.

I've been a bit teary eyed every time Stephen has come to mind in the last few hours.  As I type now, the target has just passed £1.1m.

There's one quote of Stephen's which Jason has posted up on Facebook this morning which is so true and sums up life pretty much...

"Life shouldn't be measured by time, it should be measured by what you achieve".  How true is that, eh?

Stephen's story makes me realise how lucky I am quite frankly.  To lose life at such a young age is tragic but he leaves behind one hell of a legacy, one of which his parents, family and those close to him can be bloody proud of.

I'm glad to say that Stephen, although very poorly, is aware of what he has achieved in meeting his target and helping a lot of others in the process.

Stephen - I've never met you nor will I but your story has truly touched me.  You've got bigger balls than I ever will have.  What am amazingly inspirational man you are.  God bless.  The Pearly Gates are missing a true Angel.

Sorry, I'm off to get the tissues again :(