Jack Johnson, Please Play A Set At Sickkids In August

Jack, when your 2008 summer tour brings you to Oro just outside Toronto in August, please drop in at Sickkids and play a set in Canada's largest pediatric hospital. We celebrate your passion for green energy, this visit would get the red going in a place where there is a lot of blue, a lot of little miracles, where a beautiful child dies almost every day. Where children and parents surf the scariest waves life will ever blow their way. We first heard your music when one of Sasha's core nurses loaned us Curious George and we got silly and played it every bed time for 6 months. And everything was upside down and we wanted to share this love with everyone and we didn't want this feeling to go away. Now, almost two years after our little Sasha went to the Valhala of surgical heroes at age two you again reach in deep with go on. We watched Sasha fade slowly to a place we couldn't go, bound by blood and love from the moment we play you to our children. Your songs lay their fingers on our souls.

Passover at SickKids Hospital and at home

We have celebrated the last two nights with the Steins and the Blumbergs, surrounded by the noises of Sasha's cousins, enjoying Mia's first Passover. Last year we laid out a seder in the Terrace Cafe at SickKids, drawing occasional glances from the hard working med students that frequent the large cafe during the quiet off hours. Sasha was just ok, she wasn't in great spirits, it was getting late. We felt it was important to celebrate passover at the hospital, knowing this would be, like every major milestone, Sasha's second and last. Toward the end of the meal we were joined by two doctors from the General Surgery team. There was a comraderie and spirit that night that I hope to never experience again in its weight and sadness; the talk of leaving bondage and singing Dayenu (Enough) quite symbolic after 4 months at SickKids Hospital and a deepening desire, with many fears, to return home.



Here we are with two of the General Surgery team.



And a flashback to Sasha at her first passover at Kenny, Cindy, Betsy, Sarah and Mandy singing Ma Nishtana and greatly appreciating Sasha's first Passover.



You can hear her little voice on this one as she explores the hagadah. Such a sweet little voice.