On the other side of this nation, a man lives in a state that I have never visited.

This man and I, we have never looked into each other’s eyes and smiled at a secret joke that only close friends share.  We’ve never talked on the phone, or had dinner together with our families.  We’ve never stopped by each other’s places for a cup of coffee or offered to watch each other’s children.

Still, we are friends.  Not close in the way that most people define “close,” of course.

Every few days, we take the time to read about each other’s lives, offer support when needed and encouragement when appropriate.  This is what binds us.  And this, in my mind, is enough for a friendship to be real.

Jason’s life, in so many ways, is a lot like mine.

We have spouses.

We have children.

We have siblings.

We have responsibilities, obligations, joy, laughter and a strong sense of treating other people with kindness and compassion.

We are also different in many ways.  Most of those ways don’t matter to me, save that they might actually make me like Jason a little more.

There is one difference between the two of us, though, that does matter to me.

My mother is alive and Jason’s is not.

Jason lost his mother to breast cancer in 1996.

As a general rule, I try to put myself in other people’s shoes all the time.

How would I feel?  What would I do if I were this person?  How would I want another person to support me?

In this case, I am not comfortable doing this.

But, I will.

Because Jason is my friend, and that’s what friends do for one another.

If I had lost my mother to breast cancer over a decade ago, I would miss her every single day until the day I died.

I would push back tears every single time I had to mention her to someone.

I would wish with all my might that she were here to watch my kids graduate from high school, college, maybe even see them get married.

I would feel inadequate when I tried to describe who she was to my children who had never met her.

I would feel anger, guilt and unbearable sadness.

I would become a person who had to try to be happy because my mother’s absence would make something that should feel natural feel just that more forced.

I would wonder why this had to happen.

I would want to know how I could have stopped this.

I would look around for ways that I could stop this from happening to other women, to other families.

I would find an organization like Susan G. Komen, dedicated to educating communities about breast cancer prevention that worked not only on a local level, but on an international level, to raise awareness.

I would begin to understand that one of the best ways to stop this from happening again to someone else, maybe even to my own daughter, would be to support an organization like this.

I would commit myself to helping this organization.

I would volunteer to walk sixty miles over a three day period so someone else’s mom, maybe my friend’s mom, would have a chance against a disease that claimed over 40, 000 lives in 2009.

I would sleep on the ground in a tent even though I abhor the thought of sleeping outside.

I would want my friends to support me through that.

I’m not saying that’s how Jason feels.  I’m saying if I were Jason, that’s how I would feel.

I know that this is what I would want and also who I would want to be.

Jason is my friend, and I’m supporting him because that’s what I would want.

Please CLICK HERE to support my friend Jason if you feel so inclined.  No amount is too small.