Photo: Thinkstock

A childhood summertime ritual, the humble lemonade stand, became something much more last week in East Texas: 6-year-old Drew Cox decided to sell lemonade to his neighbors in an effort to raise money for his father, who has a rare form of cancer and thousands of dollars in medical bills. According to local news station KLTV, Drew said he came up with the idea to make his dad feel better. "He is so important to me. We like to play with each other; Lots of times we like to play games," Drew told KLTV. Drew's lemonade stand brought in a huge crowd of friends and neighbors, and by the end of the day they had raised over $10,000 to go towards his dad's hospital bills.

The whole story just makes me want to weep and smile at the same time. I'm reminded me of something a friend told me her 3-year-old son said. When faced with the idea of death, when he asked if everyone had to die and was told that yes, everyone died, the boy thought about this for a long, quiet moment and then responded, "Chocolate is a vegetable!"

Personally, I can't think of a better response to the huge scariness of illness, of death. Chocolate is a vegetable. Lemonade will make someone's cancer feel better. Yes....Yes, yes, yes.

(via Upworthy.)

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