We could hear it approaching before we could actually see it.

On July 14 at Klein Creek Golf Club in Winfield, Illinois, a crowd gathered on the ninth green. We were golfers and caddies and volunteers who had been together since breakfast. We were folks just free from a long day at the office, ready to have some fun. Some of us fought traffic, like Dr. John Millichap, who hurried to join us after work at Lurie Children’s Hospital downtown, still in his suit and tie. We were some 225 friends new and old, some all the way from Denver and California and Florida and Las Vegas. And we were all focused on something together, expectantly, looking up.

If you think I’m going to say that that something was a helicopter, you are half right. Against a blue sky no one would have believed possible hours earlier, a red helicopter emerged. It hovered for dramatic effect over the tenth hole and then dropped its payload. The lucky golf ball closest to the hole won $5000; the sale of chances brought in thousands more. And when the evening was over, the Third Annual Jack’s Army Golf Outing had raised an astounding $80,000 to research KCNQ2-related epilepsy and raise awareness. This crazy success proved what we already knew: The devotion of this Foundation’s supporters runs deep.

Jack’s parents felt that support, and so did Harper's and James' parents, our very special guests that night, and the families of all the children far and wide who seek a cure. I know I speak for all of them when I say thank you to all who share so generously of their time, talent, and treasure. When people come together to work for a common goal, amazing things can happen.

Reflecting on the golf outing, I see the helicopter as something more.  It’s a metaphor for the hope for a cure that will come. We just know it. We can hear it in the distance, coming closer, and feel it reverberate in the air around us. That’s why we stand together and look up.