To this day, Darren Greenwood doesn’t know who was responsible for the care package, but it couldn’t have come at a better time.
It was 2011 and Darren’s son, Joe, was about to be diagnosed with leukemia.
Joe, 17 at the time, had begun feeling ill during a family vacation and had gone to see his doctor upon their return. After looking at the results of his blood tests, the doctor told Joe and his parents they needed to go directly from their home in Ripon, outside of Modesto, to the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center.
They arrived late. They were tired. They were hungry.
That’s when they got the care package.
“Somebody at some time had made some kind of donation to the hospital,” Darren says, “so that new leukemia patients and their families would get one.” Darren says, in retrospect, it wasn’t important what was in the package, just that it was there.
“It was just the coolest thing,” Darren says, holding back tears, “that somebody somewhere was thinking about you.”
