Golf Dreams

A young player in a match against leukemia.

- Keely Levins

BENJAMIN BURKE is telling me about piano lessons. “We had to sing, but I’m not that kind of person,” he says. His parents and I laugh, but he isn’t making a joke. In a way that’s quite matter-of-fact, he knows himself, and he knows what he is and isn’t about. It sounds a little crazy to talk about a 10-year-old like that, but sometimes Benjamin comes across older. Three years of treatments for T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia will do that.

Just three more months of treatments remain. He’ll get them at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, one of 170 Children’s Miracle Network hospitals. Barbara and Jack Nicklaus, in their continued support of children’s health care, are leading a new campaign to raise $100 million to benefit Children’s Miracle Network hospitals nationwide.

Benjamin, an avid golfer, even got to meet Jack Nicklaus. He wasn’t nearly as nervous about it as his dad, Sean.