Chris Cooley did a very nice thing today (Tuesday, July 29). He invited 25 children from the Children’s National Medical Center and the Hospital for Sick Children to be his guest at a Redskins practice. He gave each of them a “goody” bag, filled with a handheld video game system, games, videos and Redskins souvenirs.

Cooley stood and talked with the children and their parents. Many players stopped to sign autographs for the kids. When the visit ended, Cooley thanked everybody for coming.

“It makes my day,“ Cooley said. “I really had a lot of fun, picking out things for the kids. I wanted them to have a good day. A lot of times, they get stopped up in their rooms, and this gives them a chance to come out and meet everybody. Since they spend so much time in their rooms, we wanted to provide gifts they can use in their rooms.

“There is nothing better than to make someone’s day, to make someone happy. That’s why I wanted to do it. I wanted to give them something to talk about and something to remember that they love.“

This was a particularly affecting visit. These were children who ranged in age from about three years old to teen-agers. Some of them barely seemed big enough to walk, yet they suffer from cancer. That is just terribly unfair and heartbreaking. A number of the children were bouncing around, smiling, enjoying the visit, oblivious to the IV ports they had in their cheeks.

The children came with their parents, and the question that came to my mind was, “What keeps these parents going? Where do they find the strength to deal with something as difficult as this?“

“I don’t know,“ said Trish Hamilton, whose 15-year-old son was thought to be in remission, until a test last month revealed the cancer had returned. “You just believe that something will happen that my son will get better. I know he’ll get better. Believing that is what carries you.

“There is no need to play the ostrich and put our heads in the sand. We continue going and have to make sure it gets better. You wait for the next scan to see what the status is, the next count to see if he needs platelets, hoping he doesn’t get sick or too tired from the chemo.“

It is difficult to imagine what it must it be like to wake every morning knowing your child, the most precious thing in the world to you, is in a battle with cancer.

“You can try, but you can’t come close to it,“ Hamilton said. “It’s so hard to describe anyway. You can only try to imagine what it’s like, and that’s as close as you’re going to get. But that’s appreciated.“

Each day when the Redskins practices were open to the public, the fans cheered heartily for good plays and shouted words of encouragement to their favorite players. After practices, the players were besieged for autographs and pictures. This season, as in all seasons, 90,000-plus fans will fill FedEx Field and make deafening amounts of noise in support of the Redskins.

The children and their parents left Redskin Park yesterday completely without fanfare. They returned to this life and death battle, which they wage largely out of sight and far from the cheering crowds.

Football players receive a great deal of praise for their hard work, effort and battle against the odds.

Yesterday, everyone at Redskin Park—players, coaches, staff, media members—knew who deserves unending praise for their courage in a battle against difficult odds.