Jodi Swanson/St. Baldricks Foundation(CHICAGO) — One bride honored her late mother, who died from cancer, by shaving off her hair two months ahead of her wedding to raise money for children’s cancer research.
Corinne Sullivan met her now-fiancé Tim Lydon while her mother, Colleen Charneski, was hospitalized, battling stage four liver cancer. Charneski died on January 6, 2016.
“I had been looking for something [to do] to honor her memory. I didn’t really know what,” Sullivan, 41, told ABC News. “I’m a runner so I thought maybe a race — but nothing seemed quite right.”
Sullivan would eventually learn about St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which hosts head-shaving events to benefit pediatric cancer research, from a mutual friend. When she heard the idea, she said to herself, “That’s what I’ve been looking for!”
Sullivan said her mother dedicated her life to pediatric cancer patients. Charneski went back to school and enrolled at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, to become a children’s oncologist nurse.
“My mother had later in life gone back to school to be a nurse and she especially wanted to work with children who had cancer,” Sullivan said, “and so she really struggled because… she was being a mom, and working full time. It was really inspirational.”
Sullivan, who sported long blonde hair, decided to participate in a head-shaving event the following year. Little did she know that on December 19, 2017, while ice skating at Chicago’s Millennium Park, she’d become engaged to Lydon, 41.
She immediately reminded her fiancé of her plan to shave her head. But, of course, Lydon was supportive.
Sullivan decided to turn the head-shaving event on March 9 inside Fado Irish Pub in Chicago into her bridal shower, inviting 20 close friends to grab a drink, eat gluten-free cupcakes and watch her shave her hair off. And in lieu of gifts, she asked them to donate to St. Baldrick’s Foundation. So far, she’s raised more than $1,350.
“We have head-shaving events all year long now, and Corrine’s ‘bridal shave’ at our event at Fado Irish Pub in Chicago is a perfect example of a dynamic volunteer using her personal story, and her mom’s, to go bald to raise funds for lifesaving childhood cancer research,“ Kathleen Ruddy, CEO of St. Baldrick’s Foundation, told ABC News in a statement. “Money raised by St. Baldrick’s volunteers funds the best childhood cancer research throughout the United States and beyond so that kids can live the long and healthy lives they deserve.”
“We are honored that Corrine chose to support childhood cancer research in such a bold way and [we] hope others will be similarly inspired to get involved in our mission to take childhood back from cancer,” Ruddy concluded.
“It was the best way to bring my mom into our wedding,” the Sullivan said. “She got super attached [to her patients]. It was the most important thing in the world to her. I don’t want to honor the way she died. I want to honor the way she lived.”
Lydon even had the honors of taking the first bits of hair off of Sullivan’s head.
“I got really choked up as I was doing it,” he told ABC News of the experience. “I was honored to be the first person doing this knowing this is how she’s honoring her mom for the wedding. Her spirit was definitely in the room.”
Sullivan and Lydon plan to wed on May 12 at Chicago’s Reggies Rock Club in front of 120 guests. And although she doesn’t have anything planned “in particular” to honor her mother at her nuptials, she knows that her mother is with her in spirit — especially after her bridal shower.
“If she had been here, she would’ve been proud,” Sullivan said. “And she would’ve also told me, ‘You’re crazy!'”
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