Liz Hawley's 3 Sons Running in Celebration of her Life

It's hard to believe it's the 5-year anniversary of our Mom passing away so needlessly. This year I'm honoured that my brothers, Jay and Adam, are going to join the run to help raise awareness and money for one of Mom's favourite causes.

Again this year, we wanted to honour her by doing two of the many things she instilled in us for as long as I remember. Her focus on health and taking care of her body, and giving so much of herself to help people.

Some of our earliest memories of mom were me going downstairs while she was doing step class videos, or on her bike or her daily ab routine. She always carved out time to break a sweat and frequently invited us to join - taunting that we couldn't handle a step class... and she was probably right. It's this gift, both breaking a sweat and taunting, that she passed on to me and my brothers, and is now being passed on to her next generation (Ransom, Joshua, Levi, Cadence, Merritt, Malcolm, Easton, Callie and Addison). It's heartbreaking to think that she never got to meet three of her grandchildren, and something tells me these last ones might have been her favourites with their heightened levels of sass.

Mom was also the most selfless person we've ever known. Giving so much of her time, talent and treasure to those in need. We really didn't understand its full extent until she passed - just how many people counted on her to help them, guide them, and support them in any way she could. She is the exact model of the type of human we aspire to be, and we were so fortunate to have her in our lives.

On July 27th, all three of us will be completing the 4 x 4 x 24 challenge, which is running 4 kms every 4 hours for 24 hours. Starting at 4am on the 27th and ending sometime after midnight on the 28th. The funds raised will be going to one of mom's favourite causes, sponsoring children in poverty. I remember writing letters to our sponsored kids as a kid who could barely write. It helped to give us perspective, and appreciate how fortunate we were. Compassion Canada is a world-class organization that sponsors children across the world, with only a small fraction of funds going to their overhead. Compassion is delivering children from poverty across the globe and supports more than 2 million infants, children and youth.

This year, our donations will go FOUR TIMES FAR as far, as dad, Caddle AND Ransom will be matching every dollar raised up to $5,000! Together we can make a big difference in honouring mom's life and legacy, and helping release children across the globe from poverty.