The Relay

When I woke up today, I cried.  Because my body has once again betrayed me.  But in seconds, I remembered those people in the park today.  I stopped that pity party and put my son’s shoes on, and went on about my morning.

What are they doing in the park today?  They are raising funds to find a cure for cancer.  They are celebrating all the warriors in their community who are fighting or have fought the battle against cancer and are survivors.  They are remembering those warriors who have left the battlefield, and who now spur us on to continue the fight.  Some are angry, some are confused, some are laughing, and some are crying.  This is what the battle against cancer looks like every minute of every day; a roller coaster of emotions, with no visual of the track.  One minute, riding high, the next minute sinking low.  The constant battle wears, the threat of its return, looming heavily.

Gloom and Doom…
Today started with a thunderstorm.  It rained last year too.  But Relay doesn’t get rained out.  Because Cancer doesn’t get rained out.  The reality of living today, with all of our intelligence is knowing the facts.  The fact is that lifetime risk (probability of getting or dying from cancer in one’s lifetime) for men is 1 in 2, and women is just a little over 1 in 3. According to www.cancer.org . This speaks to the general population, not taking into account risk or genetics.  For me, that number means that it is likely I will care for a cancer patient in my immediate family.  My husband, son or daughter, or I will be a cancer patient.  Not something I want to dwell on. The survival rate for all cancers diagnosed from 2002-2008 was 68%, which was up from 47% of those who were diagnosed from 1975-1977.  Good news, this increase, but not good enough.  Personally, I’d like to see this rate be 100% survival for all those who are diagnosed.

The Warriors Who Never Chose This Battle…
My brother-in-law, a toddler, at two, with his parents and siblings, fighting Leukemia.  Taking those nasty drugs to kill that disease made changes to his body that weren’t fair to a two-year-old, but necessary to survive.  He was a young warrior.  One of the youngest I personally know.  A little girl of a girl who went to my school.  Fighting the battle, and me, praying for her, even though we’d never met, even though we were miles away.  Another little girl, this one, in Line’s dance class.  A bump in her belly turned out to be a mass of cancer.  Four years old.  Fighting.  Bosses, coworkers, friends.  Throughout my adult life, I have known too many people who are warriors who did not choose this battle.
I was sixteen the first time I found out that my dad was not superman.  They had found something on his back.  A tumor.  Mom was worried.  They told me when I got back from a trip to the Ozarks.  It was the first time I ever truly sensed that type of fear.  Fortunately, our fears were eased when the results came back benign, but I would know it again in twenty five years.  That’s when, about six months after his heart attack, my dad was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  And that’s when the whole world started looking very different.  The world wasn’t a safe fantasy land anymore.  No one was safe.  If my dad could be taken by this disease, then anyone could. And then my sister… who would have thought she could have cancer in her.  Her sprite spirit, suddenly darkened and slowed, worry and fear of the unknown.  And then her resection.  Painful, but part of the process of her recovery.  Still marching on, these warriors who did not choose the battle.  And now, my cousin, my friend, has taken her place on the battlefield.

The Warriors On The Home Front…
I had never felt so helpless as the day my parents told me that Dad had cancer.  I wanted to fly home and be with him.  I wanted answers, and the doctors seemed to be in no hurry.  Two weeks they would wait for results to come back on typing.  Two weeks.  What the hell good are they if they take two whole weeks to get results back?  Two whole weeks before they can even decide on what treatment they were going to give him.  Two whole weeks.  I remember being so angry.  I wanted to call the hospital and talk to the highest person in charge and demand that they remove that disease from my father IMMEDIATELY!  Don’t they know who this person is?  Don’t they understand how dire this situation is?  Thoughts of all kinds went through my head, but I only remember feeling a sense of urgency.  Probably because it was the first time I’d ever known my parents to be helpless.  The first time I myself had felt completely helpless.  There was truly nothing anyone could do for dad at that moment.  The only thing we could all do was wait. And care.
Mom was more quiet.  She didn’t say much during the diagnosis and treatment stages.  Only that dad was having a “good day”.  Being 1,400 miles away did not help my situation, because I was quite sure that my dad didn’t have a “good day” every day, but mom never wanted to say anything negative about dad’s recovery.  Especially not in front of dad.  Dad just kept on.  He went to get his treatments and then went on to work.  He worked every day. Sometimes, he didn’t move around much on the weekends, mom said, but he’d work all week.  He couldn’t eat much, didn’t feel well.  But he had to provide for her and she had to take care of him.  She prayed.  Of that I’m sure.  I bet she spent every spare breath praying every day.  If she wasn’t talking, she was praying.  She sat with him, she listened to doctors with him, she transcribed notes for him, she then made daily return calls with updates, after he’d gone to sleep and she’d taken care of the house.  She would have breathed for him, if that would have helped.  She loves him, and she serves him well.  In sickness and health.

Leaving the Battlefield…
Some of the most important men and women in my life were warriors.  They toiled day in and day out through times that I can not imagine.  Times like the great depression… when there were no jobs and no money, no food and no clothing… so what little they could buy, they recycled into clothing.  Sugar sacks and flour sacks were made of cloth and were fashioned into dresses my young grandmother wore to school.  Shoes were a luxury the oldest child got, and handed down to the others.  By the time they reached the baby, they were no longer Mary Janes, they were flip-flops.  My grandmothers saved everything because they lived through a time when throwing anything away (even a package that the used up sugar came in) was wasteful.  Do we even know waste in this day and age?  Everything is disposable!  The toiling was real.  They worked hard.  They loved hard.  They played hard.  They tried hard.  They never quit.  So when I found out that my great grandmother died of cancer in the 80’s, I was surprised.  I never knew her to be sick.  She worked every day of her life that I could remember.  Yes, she was yellow and skinny and wrinkled.  No, I don’t remember her ever sitting down to eat with us.  But I remember her, in her apron, in her kitchen, baking, working, serving.  I remember yellow butter in a covered dish on their table, and “A Stitch In Time Saves Nine” embroidered cloth on her sewing machine.  I remember her.
My aunt, a relatively young woman, probably close to the age I was when I had Line, diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  A cruel blow to a woman.  She stood up and fought that disease with dignity and class and little fanfare.  Reconstructive surgery?  She took that on as well.  She made the news as one of the first women to do so.  Two of my favorite great aunts – diagnosed with cancer.  They were classy and strong all the way to the end.  Never resigning, never whining.  Always looking out for others, kept themselves moving, serving, and giving until their final days.  My grandfather, a World War II veteran.  Like a diamond, strong and hard he was.  Never weak, never flexible; he stood and the world moved around him, at least that’s how it seemed to me.  I learned he was only as strong as his body would allow him to be, and I watched him die a very slow and extremely painful death.  Too many days he died.  Too many family members who were warriors.  Too many people I loved, fighting secretly, behind closed doors of hospitals, inside themselves, confined for care at the end, but never their spirits.  Their spirits soared every day then, and now.

Walking Warriors…
I’m a walker.  I enjoy it, I can do it.  It’s my gift to my health, but on this one day of the year, it’s my gift to these warriors who are on a battlefield they did not choose.  It’s my way of honoring those warriors that have had to leave this fight.  I have two little kids, a full time job, a loving husband, I volunteer in the community, and I am very busy.  But I am never too busy to take an afternoon to walk.  And so, on Relay Day, each year, I walk.  Sometimes, I work at a booth to help raise funds too, but I make sure I walk.  I take a lap for every person I’ve personally known who has ever been diagnosed with cancer.  I walk for those who have died and now live cancer free.  I walk for the caregivers, who stand valiantly beside their warriors, through every painful step of battle.  I walk for my children, who, I hope, will never need “treatment“, because there will be a CURE instead.  I walk for the brothers and sisters, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters and all the other people in the world who have ever heard the word “cancer”, and immediately felt fear, anger, confusion, uncertainty, helpless, anxiety, frustration or any other emotion.  I walk for the opportunity to remember those who are no longer fighting, and those who will have to hear those three words no one ever wants to hear, “you have cancer”…  I walk because I can.

If you are not familiar with The Relay For Life, please visit their website by clicking HERE.  If you are a fellow Relay-er, thank you.  Thank you for another year.  Thank you for supporting, celebrating, and remembering our local warriors.  Thank you for raising funds, spreading awareness, sharing the journey. Thank you for making cancer visible, so that we can eradicate it!

I was not personally able to walk this year, as I am ill, and did not want to spread anything to those with compromised immune systems, but I did take my laps in the living room, because, I am still a Walking Warrior! I hope you felt my spirit with you as you took your laps today.