Relay for Life

We all had a great time at the relay.

I baked, and baked for the bake sale, so did all my friends. There wasn't the turn out we expected and we ended up with a lot of left over goodies. Which was a disappointment.

The relay was supposed to go from 5pm until 5am on Friday. Jeff arrived at the venue around 8am. He called me around 10:30am to join him for lunch. I ended up getting a lot of phone calls, I tried to get the last sheet of cookies baked from the batch I was working on, I took a shower and I didn't end up getting to the field until after 11am. Not bad I thought. By then Jeff was busy with other things and instead of going to grab a quick lunch he put me to work. I was kneeling in the field putting up the cancer eduction signs and ended up getting a stinging rash on my legs from something I knelt in, I also got a sunburn. Then we got lunch. I didn't get home until almost two and therefore didn't end up baking any more cookies. Which is good since I didn't sell half of what I had already baked.

I then drove around delivering t-shirts to my team. Got home just in time to get Lily from the bus. She had spent the day outside for field day. She was covered in bug spray, sun tan lotion, sweat and a sunburn. I decided what she needed was a bath. I felt it would be more comfortable for her to spend the night outside if she wasn't all itchy and gross the whole time. She was not amused. This was not a part of the plan. We had discussed the plan for weeks and she was furious with me that I was giving her an unscheduled bath and we were leaving an hour late. I also made her eat a good meal. We made it to the relay by 4pm. Lily was clean, re-sprayed with bug spray and had a belly full of nutritious food. She spent the rest of the night eating pizza, hot dogs, cookies, brownies, cupcakes and I don't even know what else.

My friends came out and stayed for hours and hours. Everyone put an enormous amount of effort into the event. We had so much fun together. It was a swirl of activity and it was 5am before I had a chance to blink.

Lily slept from around 9:30 until 11 or so, and then she was up for the rest of the night. She must have ran 10 miles. She just kept running and having a blast. She won a whistle at one of the game booths and blew that thing all night. Drove loads of people mad, they complained about the whistle a lot. She would get upset when I asked her to stop. Mostly I thought that with the loud music and general loudness of the event that a whistle added to the overall party atmosphere and mostly I let her blow it to her hearts content. There were other types of noise makers as well.

At the end the three of us, Jeff, Lily and I carried our baton and our sign around the track together. It was fun.

I saw girls there who were not much bigger than our Lily and they were wearing the purple t-shirt indicating that they were cancer survivors. Lily was walking and talking with the girls, I was behind them a bit. I just tear up at the moment to see Lily so full of health and life running around a track until 5am. I cannot imagine how it would be to endure having a child sick with cancer. So glad to see those two girls full of health and vigor at the event. This is why I relay - I love to see so many survivors and I want to contribute to more people having a good outcome.

During this journey to the relay, the months of meetings and emails that brought us to the night, I met so many wonderful people. Cancer survivors and others like me who have been touched by cancer via family members. So many of these folks work so hard and with such grace. There are the frustrations and the complainers but overall I witnessed the most amazing bits of human spirit during this journey. I hope to learn to be less of a complainer and more of a -I don't know what to call it - a person who works hard toward a goal and lets it all just roll off their back with a great attitude and never sweats the small stuff.

If you ever are lonely I recommend volunteering, you meet the best people and your outlook on the world is forever changed.