65 Roses, 1 Great Cause

www.champsforcharity.ca

BADEN —

Sixty-five roses are wrapped snugly around Michelle Clark’s heart.

They bloom perpetually for her 11-year-old son Lincoln.

You see, Lincoln has cystic fibrosis, a serious genetic disease affecting the lungs and digestive system.

So what do 65 Roses have to do with such a thorny, life-threatening condition?

The flowery connection is rooted in 1965.

“Way back when, there was a kid who tried to pronounce cystic fibrosis,” explained Clark one of Mandy Bujold’s Champions for Charity fighting for MacKids.

“But it came out 65 roses.”

The Maryland boy’s name was Richard, who heard his mom talking on the phone and was unable to repeat the tongue-twister ailment that afflicted three of her sons.

So maybe, on a live-streamed  Fight Night at sold-out Tapestry Hall in Cambridge on April 24, a puck-chasing veterinary technician will climb into the ring clutching five-dozen-plus-five roses.

“That’d be cool,” Clark said.

Clark, 38, already knows her walk-out song.

It’ll be Don’t Give Up on Me from the movie Five Feet Apart. People with cystic fibrosis are supposed to walk six feet apart to avoid spreading dangerous infections. In the movie, one foot is reclaimed in the name of love and closeness.

I will fight for you, I always do,

Until my heart is black and blue

That’s why, every three months for nearly 12 years, Clark has taken Lincoln to McMaster Children’s Hospital. The doctors and staff of MacKids, which this fourth edition of the Champs has raised nearly $800,000 for, are wrapped around her heart too.

“They’re like family,” Clark said. “I love them there.”

Lincoln is the cheerful face of what the community leaders and first-time pugilists of the Champions for Charity train and fight for. Daily, he takes more than 30 pills, inhaled medications and chest physiotherapy to stay healthy.

When he goes to McMaster — where 20 per cent of visits to the paediatric intensive care units are made by patients from Waterloo Region — he sees his medical team.

Lung tests are completed. Shopping bags full of medication are refilled. His airways are cleared. His mom can breath more easily too.

“Very funny and very kind,” the Guelph-raised Clark said of her video game-loving son Lincoln.

And her daughter Aubree, 13, is just as caring and sweet.

Especially with the family felines, Chug and Cheeto.

Maybe she whispered to the cats she was going to try out for Champions for Charity after a girl on her hockey team suggested it.

After all, what were the chances she would get selected?

Pretty good, it turns out.

She got picked. Her husband Rob has been very supportive.

Now, with 65 Roses and Lincoln in her heart, she is ready to fight like never before.

I’ll hold onto you, No matter what this world will throw.

“It hasn’t been easy,” she said of the months of boxing training.

“But I think it’s really rewarding and to have a chance to do something like this, I feel like it’s once in a lifetime.”

www.champsforcharity.ca

To support Michelle, click here.