Selflessness is the face of kindness and selflessness in the face of adversity is grace under pressure. If no one else has, it is time to tell Toby Stigdon he is the embodiment of that definition.

Given a horrifying terminal cancer diagnosis three years ago, Stigdon chose not to turn completely inward and retreat from the world, but rather to embrace it. Rather than focus on the hopelessness of a situation, he dug in to fight it.

Sunday morning, Oct. 20, Stigdon, now 45, and hardy partners, set off on a 140-mile kayaking journey from Petersburg, completing a trip on the White River to raise money to assist other cancer patients. Not to help Stigdon, who organized this paddle for a third time, but who keeps none of the money to help himself.

Entering the weekend, Kayaking for Cancer had raised nearly $10,000 this year, added to the $46,000-plus previously raised by Stigdon, fellow paddlers Greg Foley and B.J. Strong, and a few other participants over their watery miles.

The money is administered through a Schneck Medical Center program designed to pay for expenses incurred by cancer patients not covered by insurance. That may mean a transportation ride to treatment, or other little things that can add up.

Stigdon is from Seymour, but lives in Columbus with his wife Samantha and children Chase and Olivia. He has good medical insurance to care for his poorly differentiated thyroid cancer that spread to his lungs with tumors, and has said he doesn’t need the financial support. So these paddles are for other cancer patients.

How many of us, faced with such a devastating medical prognosis, would respond by committing our time to strangers? How would each of us choose to behave in such circumstances? It might be said Stigdon is a dying man setting an example to others of how to live.

“A lot of people are skeptical,” said Foley, who did not know Stigdon until they became paddling partners. “I hope they don’t think it (the money) is going to Toby. This is really true.”

Stigdon, who has worked as a day-care center aide, said last year he felt many people who backed the kayaking fund-raiser initially probably thought he was going to die. But here he is, wearier than usual, but still battling, in a third year.

So many depressing and tumultuous events shape the world, from wars to racism, hatred and nasty political discourse, those with charitable intent are often overshadowed. Kayaking for Cancer is something uplifting.

Stigdon has not only gained sore shoulder muscles from long-distance paddling, he has made friendships through Kayaking for Cancer and been touched by individual responses, whether through email or otherwise. Hearing from people who benefit from the donations is special to him. Stigdon considers those patients “like family to me. From those who struggle.” He also said it warms him “to see the love of people in the community giving.”

Yet consistent with his self-effacing manner and giving credit to others for help, Stigdon stopped shy of actually saying he was proud of what had been accomplished.

“I’m more just happy,” Stigdon said. “It is something I started and other people care about the same thing. That makes my heart feel good. It makes me smile.”

Kayaking for Cancer began as a one-time event. Each year the paddlers have explored another segment of the White River and this year’s run will take them across a small section of the Wabash onto the Ohio River as the finish line.

The plan is to paddle four or five days, 25-to-30 miles daily, depending on water conditions, which could be slower or faster current, and whatever the weather brings. The trio will camp overnight along the river bank and at times fish from their kayaks as they go.

Stigdon has joked that next comes the Mississippi River, or even Lewis and Clark-like, somehow paddling all of the way to the Pacific Ocean. Of course, that is fanciful. Stigdon is well aware of time constraints.

“I am happy to have made it three years,” he said.

Time, as Toby Stigdon has been told, is his enemy, and he knows it is important to use it well. He has.