My heart is so heavy right now, having just read some posts about a couple of little boys facing a rather imminent death from cancer. I don't want ANYONE to die from it, but how it hurts when children are involved! I had already made tentative plans to go this weekend to a fundraiser for another area child fighting a cancer battle. Even with all the strides that have been made in the battle against this horrible disease, there is still so much needing to be done.
I don't want to sound like a broken-record, boring "advertisement"...but THIS is why I "Relay". I was pulled several years ago into The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life locally by my friend, Cheryl, when she very sweetly told me she was buying a luminary bag in my honor for that year's Relay. I was floored, because it had been so many years since my cancer ordeal--to have MY name on that track as part of an effort to raise money to help with all the people who were currently going through chemo, and radiation, and fear, and surgery, and worry, and heartache, and the tremendous great "unknown" that comes with a cancer diagnosis--it was overwhelming.
I was talking with a friend's mother just yesterday about Relay. She is a breast cancer survivor--her battle was years after my mother died from it. My mother was violently ill when she went through her chemo treatments--that was a large part of the reason she chose to stop them when she did. By the time my friend's mom had her chemo, the medical community knew how to give anti-nausea drugs to prevent the wretched, disheartening side-effect that made my mom feel worse than the cancer ever did. ACS Relay dollars helps to fund the kinds of research that make these breakthroughs--new medicines, new protocols, new treatments, new means of prevention, new HOPE.
I am not good at asking for anything. I would have been a terrible salesperson. But I AM an advocate for Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society. The Relay event itself for Whitfield County is May 18 at the Fairgrounds. There are so many ways you can participate, help, contribute. Relay is a powerful, life-affirming event. We get together--we celebrate survivors, we remember the ones we've lost, we spend a whole night walking, talking, laughing, playing....and sometimes shedding tears of both sorrow AND joy--as those of us on the Relay teams work hard to make sure that...well, that less mothers and fathers will be sitting in hospitals watching their child die. No matter HOW overly-dramatic that might sound, I can assure you it's NOTHING compared to actually experiencing it.
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| Luminaria spell out Hope the night of Relay |
Please, please. Join us for Relay. There will be games, and food, and fun from 7:00 p.m. and then literally all night long. We would love to see you there at the Fairgrounds, but you can help without even being there. Naturally, all donations are welcome. But I particularly love the luminaries and can only TRY to explain how much it means to someone to know their name is there. We'll make a luminaria for YOUR loved one--to honor a survivor, or remember one who has passed-- for $10.00, and their light will shine out in the night, like a beacon of hope.
Here's a link to my Team Phipps Relay page--you can sign up for a luminary (there's a purple toggle button in the middle of the page just for luminaria) and pay online, if you want. It doesn't take long; it's only $10.00 per luminary. But it's a priceless way to honor someone you love....and to help another loved one --or someone you will never know-- beat this awful, dreadful, wretched disease.
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