Sharing Stories - Why I Relay

I lost my source for this - I think it's Relay Canada's. 

Last Wednesday was the final full meeting before Relay For Life. I've been a team captain many times over, served on a Relay For Life committee for a few years, participated in three different Relays, and hell I even chaired a Relay for a few years. The basics of Relay don't change, even when you change locations. I skip a lot of monthly meetings in lieu of reading the minutes and stalking Relay on Facebook. 

The very last thing I felt like doing was leaving my house to attend a volunteer meeting that would start 15 minutes late and where things I've heard and said myself hundreds of times would be repeated. But I went. I wanted the map of the event and I wanted a Wawa hoagie on the way back. As forecasted, the meeting started 20 minutes late. I was annoyed, hungry, wishing I was at home...then three ladies stepped up to talk about why they Relay. Sharing why you Relay is a big part of Relay For Life.

Via

I sat and listened to a woman who had to stop and collect herself while talking about losing her Dad to cancer. She just wants everyone to be able to spend Father's Day with their dads. Next, a woman who was so full of fire after beating cancer that she could barely get the words out. 

I am a person who tears up at things like this. I always have been and I always will be. I teared up for those people and their stories, but also for my people and their stories. 

With her mention of Father's Day I teared up thinking about Laura's dad not being here on Father's Day for what will always be too many years in a row when we seem too young for that. I thought about how many family members are no longer with MFD and his cousins who are missing parents far too young. 

I thought about my Grandmom, an 80 year old woman certain she was going to beat pancreatic cancer, but also of how vulnerable, tired, and afraid she seemed when she thought you weren't paying attention. An image of my hand in hers flashed in my brain. I thought about looking down while I was holding her hand every day for the week she was unresponsive in hospice. How familiar a sight it was to me, that hand, how I had held it as a child, a teenager, a young adult. How she liked to hold hands and would rub yours with her thumb. How weird it felt to hold it now. How similar our hands were. How I wish she died circle of life style without the terrible pain that came along with the cancer but how that cancer is what made us much closer over her last year than we would've been otherwise. 

I thought about all the people who have lost loved ones to cancer over the years I've been doing this. Far too many people for me to name here, that's for sure. Not to mention those who got it, beat it, are still battling it - my father in law, Mrs. S, my Gwen, Lisa...again, far too many to name. 

I snapped back to the meeting in time to listen to a report from the Hope Lodge and how one of the patients staying there while he got treatment said that the volunteers and the Relayers give HIM hope. Just like that, I was back in the present and I was smiling, clapping, and thinking of the survivors in my life. So many people who have kicked cancer's ass. Their stories are incredible. 

I was reminded that physical attendance gives me something that meeting minutes do not - the ability to identify and empathize with other people. 

You volunteer and raise money against a disease that's painful, sad, heartbreaking, infuriating, hellish, and a million other bad things, but so much good comes from your experiences too. If you think about it, it's weird that anything related to cancer can be rewarding, but it is. It sucks to live a bad outcome. Losing someone you love and watching them suffer in the process hurts. But watching a survivor emerge victorious from this life or death battle is really fucking something too. It makes your heart soar, even if you don't know the person. 

Relays are 24 hours because cancer never sleeps. Last year was my first 24 hour Relay, I had only done 12s before. I loved being on the track at 2 a.m., walking slowly, reading the names on the luminaria bags and thinking how each bag is someone's story. Yes, it's a long day. It's usually hot. It's a lot of walking.You have to set up and break down. Your feet hurt. You likely smell. Some people are annoying. You don't sleep. But those things are nothing compared to battling cancer every day. Really. Nothing. And nothing compared to what you take away from the experience.

I think this is 4 a.m.

So that's why I Relay. For the people who've gone head to head with cancer and won. For the people doing intense battle now. For the people I've lost and the people you've lost, and for our ability to share their stories. To have a place and a time to do that surrounded by other people who have been there. To spend a day with framily raising money for a great cause. I find it cathartic. I hope if there's a Relay near you and you've never experienced it, that you go walk a lap, buy a cupcake from a team, tear up at a luminary ceremony, smile at a survivor. Be a part of the community for a minute, or an hour, or however long you'd like to stay. 

Thanks so much again to everyone who donated this year. I'm at $1,325 raised so far and still pushing on. If you'd like to donate, please click here, and if you're local, stop by Bensalem High School on Saturday, June 21, from 11 a.m. all through until Sunday at 11 a.m., walk a lap with me and see what Relay is all about.

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