In life, we cross paths with people every single day.

I truly believe that some people you are destined to meet, but sometimes it can take a while to fully understand why that connection can be so important.

In May 2015, I received the following message on Facebook:

Hello Stu, I am hoping you may be able to help us out. Our son, Colin, was diagnosed last week with Precursor B cell, lymphoblastic lymphoma. Our family has been shaken to its foundation. While everyone knows CHEO is fantastic, it’s not until you really get immersed that you see how amazing everyone is.

As a dad with two kids, my heart sunk reading her message.

I decided to pay Colin and his sister, Anna, a visit.

I didn’t know what to expect when we met.

To me he looked healthy, but I left his house thinking that here is this 11-year-old boy, with his whole life ahead of him, and now he had to face such a devastating condition.

What followed was months of raw, unfiltered posts from Colin’s mom, Laurie Gillespie, on the Colin’s Army Facebook page.

Over the years, I have been involved with many telethons and events, but there was something about Colin that drew me to him.

I remember the fall of that year, during the Hockey Fights Cancer night at Canadian Tire Centre, I posted his name on my card, and sent him my purple tie with some words of encouragement.

It was my attempt to try to make one boy’s day a little brighter, and for a brief moment help him not to think about cancer.

As the months passed, I got to know Laurie — she’s a no-holds-barred, “tell it like it is” kind of girl.

With a heavy East Coast accent, she’s got a sharp sense of humour and can make anyone around her laugh.

On Feb. 15, 2016, I faced my own diagnosis with Leukemia.

In a late-night Facebook video post, I shared the news.

I said: “If there’s anything I’ve learned from my buddy, Colin Gillespie, it’s that cancer can be beaten.”

The outpouring of support from the community was overwhelming.

But watching my buddy Colin being interviewed on CTV Ottawa the following night and crying over my battle made it very real.

The lessons I learned from his story helped me have the courage to share mine.

I’m always getting messages thanking me for my openness; what people don’t realize is that it was free therapy for me.

Because of Laurie’s honesty about Colin’s battle, the drugs, the chemotherapy, the constant mood swings, I was able to better prepare for what I was about to face.

When asked what cancer has taught Laurie, she replied: “Cancer taught me that kids are TOUGH, kids are STRONG, and they are the glue that holds us together.”

For me, it taught me that strangers are as valuable as friends, and friends suddenly become your family.

It taught me the real meaning of fear, but also of faith.

Faith that Colin would beat cancer.

Faith in CHEO — from the porter to the oncologist.

Faith in the human body, that you could recover from the unspeakable misery of chemotherapy.

And faith that one day life would return to some kind of normal.

Meeting Colin allowed me to stop asking “Why me?” and opened my eyes to all that I had been blessed with — strangers who had become friends, and reading thousands of stories of survival that helped me stay positive.

That, in the end, was my silver lining.

Stuntman Stu will write regularly for the Ottawa Sun, every third Thursday. Hear him weekday mornings on MAJIC 100 with Angie Poirier. A cancer survivor, he created the #StuStrong campaign, raising funds for leukemia and stem-cell research at The Ottawa Hospital