Jonathan Murray has kindled kindness and creative ideas!

Jonathan Murray was five years old when he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. Interwoven into the tissue in his brain’s thalamus, Jonathan’s lifespan was shortened to 18 months.

He died at age six and a half in October, 2007 nearly five years ago.

For his family, his sister Emily who was just a little bit older than her wee brother, his mom, Cathy, and his dad, Howie, the last months with Jonathan were a swing of emotions. The family tried to literally squeeze every second of time out of every day.

They were grateful for the miracle of Sick Kids Hospital; grateful for the Make-a-Wish Foundation which sent the whole family to Disney World. They were grateful to Jonathan’s Goodfellow Public School in Alcona… they planted a tree, they dedicated a spot in their library with a bin of Jonathan’s favourite books, they created an annual award to be presented in Jonathan’s memory.

Howie Murray looks back on those precious seconds as a family and talks about the moments that were magical. Just being able to set aside their son’s and brother’s diagnosis and laugh during a ride, or enjoy a stage show, or tromp in Give Kids the World let the Murrays be a family. Howie has a huge interest in racing boats and he expresses gratitude to the Offshore Super Series in Beloxi Miss where Johnathon drove in the season opener and enjoyed having ‘his own crew’ for the race.

When they returned from their Disney experience, the Murrays lived out Jonathan’s remaining weeks until his passing.

Now, four years later, Howie still looks back on the things that gave him strength. One was his brother’s recording of a song he wrote for the family. It’s called Two Feet on the Ground, and it speaks on so many levels to people who are in a time of loss. It’s about loss and about going on from that. “My brother expressed exactly where I was,” says Howie.

Basically Howie is taking the song and his experience and wants to use his skills with video equipment to create a video to go with the song, producing it as a downloadable DVD for families experiencing loss. He sees this as a gift he and brother Pat can make.

He’s using the indiegogo website to launch his story and through that he’s hoping to raise the funds to complete the video. “When it’s complete I’d like to hand it over to Sick Kids, the Candlelighters group, to Seasons Centre, to families who’ve lost a child. Howie’s goal is $30,000 to produce the video and his indie site is pay pal and credit card enabled. The donation period closes at the end of April.

Howie doesn’t want to stop there. He’d like to develop a charity to send photographers to video tape entire families while they’re at Disney with Make a Wish. He found when they returned that they had lots of memorable pictures but none of them all together as a family.

And so, you can reach Howie by email: howie.t.murray@gmail.com. You can reach his indiegogo pitch at: http://www.indiegogo.com/Two-Feet-On-the-Ground

Thanks, Howie.