Guest post from Julianne Czech:

I used to be a football fanatic. My mood, along with my late husband, often revolved around the Packers. Their weekly success, injury report, and how far they went in the playoffs too often determined what kind of day we would have.

After December 1, 2015, when we learned Adam had a large tumor in his colon, football became an escape for us. It no longer dictated our mood after the clock ran out. Instead, we looked to Sundays as three hours a week where we sat down as a family and watched football together. Putting life and all its worries in the rear view mirror, or at the very least, attempting to do so.

We didn’t talk about his stupid cancer on Sundays. We made a vow last fall to have Sundays be free of cancer talk. This was no easy feat. We gave it all our effort to ignore the elephant in the room and focus on something that didn’t really matter.

Football doesn’t really matter. Gasp! What? Yes, I just said that. A born and raised, Wisconsin grown Packers fan for 33 years just told you football doesn’t really matter.

What really matters is family and friends.

Football is a great excuse to bring us together. It offers entertainment, an escape from life. A time where family and friends can come together, have a pizza picnic on the living room floor, and drink a few Spotted Cow beers.

A time to be ridiculous and yell at the players and coaches on the field like they can hear us.  

A time to relax and watch the kids play while cheering on your favorite team.

The time when you reach into the cookie jar, pull out a sucker for your toddler, and hope it will occupy them long enough to finish the last (and longest) two minutes of the game.

This season, focus on being a fan. Like Adam and I did for nine years, enjoy the game with someone you love. Your spouse, your family, a friend, or 70,000 strangers who will be your best friends for three hours at Lambeau Field.

The Packers gave Adam and I something better to talk about instead of his never ending doctor appointments and treatment plan. A break from blood counts, side effects, and medication conversation. Being a football fan and talking about things that really didn't matter helped us feel normal.

Making it to Lambeau Field for our annual game last fall was so important to Adam. He was feeling so poorly and I was filled with worry. I think the only thing he was able to eat that day were crackers and water.

Adam saw the game so much differently though. I'll never forget the Monday after the game when he was writing and grabbed my hand when I checked in on him. He told me "thanks for such an amazing time yesterday." He wrote about the game and what it meant to him. It was posted to CheeseheadTV exactly one month before he passed.

Writing and talking about football helped Adam stay positive while he was living with cancer. Until the day Adam died, he was wearing his Packers shirt and talking football. Adam Czech was a true fan.

Thank you for following and supporting Adam's Pack. I am honored to have been Adam Czech's wife for seven years. I am proud to be his widow and the mom to our two little men, Edward and Reginald. In honor of Adam, I will leave you today with an open letter to him.

Adam,

We will all remember your love for the Packers, for writing, and your humor. Many of us will remember how much you loved James Jones and his sleeveless turtleneck (or Jones, James as you liked to call him). You loved to tell McCarthy to put in the Janis Monster. You especially loved to put on the title belt after Rodgers ran in a touchdown and would get mad at him when he wouldn't put it on. 

We will all remember how much you loved being a father to your boys, Edward and Reginald. I will always remember how much you loved me and what a great team we were. We were each other's biggest fan. 

Loved you yesterday, love you still. Always have, always will. 

Be in Peace Sweetie. 

Love,

Julianna 

{A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has shared and donated to our GoFundMe campaign for our sons’ college accounts. An incredible tribute to Adam by our family, friends, colleagues, and his followers. The links shared are a few of the tributes written to Adam and some of his finest Surviving Sunday blogs, which can be found at www.AdamsPack.com. Thank you Adam's Pack.}