One of the great honors I have in life is to serve as a Hero (now Voice) of Hope for the American Cancer Society. This group of survivors and caregivers go through a several month training process and then spend an initial year traveling all over their home state telling their story of Survivorship or Caregiving and how the American Cancer Society fits in to their story. This year I’m part of the National Voices of Hope relay team and we are celebrating at the virtual relay event, Relay USA. I’d love for you to make a donation to our team if you feel like that’s something you would like to do.
But, more than that, I’d like to share with you why Relay for Life means so much to me.
Last week, my “home Relay,” as I still like to call it, gathered for their annual Relay for Life event. My friend who is the team captain on the team I used to Relay with sent me a picture from his Timehop 5 years ago. It reminded me how much that night and that event played in such a significant turning point in my life. It was there the journey I was on began to make sense in a whole new way.
You see, I had done Relay for Life for a couple years. I was invited in by my co-workers who were “relaying”. I had a work event that always fell on the same night we held our Relay so I would come late and be part of the “overnight” team. (I was young enough back then I could still stay up late and not want to die that next day!) After a couple years in this role, I even got to upgrade my status to Co-captain.
In 2008, the year I was going through my cancer treatment, I was supposed to be Co-captain again, but in the busyness of doctor appointments, treatments, and the like, I totally missed out on my responsibilities. But my Co-captain carried on and my team was prepared to participate in the event. I was told to be there around 6:00pm when the event started. I really didn’t know what happened at Relay before 9:00 or 10:00pm because that was the earliest I had ever been able to be there. But this year was different and my folks were in town with me so we walked in to the gym right as the event was starting. I had always been in this gym for college basketball games, never a big community event like this. So I stood at the door, taking it all in as the National Anthem began playing. I looked around the room, trying to find my team when I was surprised by what I saw. Gathered under a tailgate tent about 10 yards from me were my biggest fans and supporters in t-shirts that said “I <heart> KP”. Those were my initials and those were my friends.
They quickly whisked me away (after they picked my jaw up off the ground) and got me lined up in a group of people who were already on the “track”. All of them had on purple t-shirts and I was so confused. These were other cancer survivors. I had come that day from my 3rd cancer treatment to walk in my first survivor lap at a Relay for Life event. IT WAS UNREAL.
(Amy had another awesome kid and now a teenager, Babb lost more hair and gets paid now for coaching and encouraging people every day, I well…you know all the things about me because you read them here, Jason got a new hair cut and started taking care of Arkadelphia, and RJ got a new title, Dr. A lot of life with these awesome friends!)
I can only liken this experience to 2 things – walking down the aisle at a your wedding and taking the track after you’ve won a gold medal lap. Those purple shirts felt like an American flag draped over my back. As I walked, everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. I saw people from my church, the teller at the bank who always helped me, the ladies on the downtown committees I served on, my neighbors, random people I recognized from Walmart, a few college students from the college where I worked, and then my friends. Real Friends. Real life people who had my back. And then all these random people around me, many of whom I had never met, but none-the-less I already knew. You see, they had walked where I was. They had made the trek to the capital city to take treatments and back each day. They had gone the day after their treatment to get the shot that would sustain them and their immune system over the weekend. They had called to tell close family members the hardest news they had ever heard, but came out on the other side of it. And, they were here, standing on either side of, on the other side of it. A reminder to the rest of us, newly diagnosed, of where we could be.
But that night was more than the opportunity to get a new purple shirt, I understood for the first time what this whole thing was about. Up to that point, the symbolism I understood was this:
- cancer never sleeps so we never sleep = staying on the track all night
- pushing through the tough hard part of the night to…
- the sunrise = a reminder that the new day comes, or the symbolism of the time after remission
That night I learned the biggest thing you need in this journey – SUPPORT.
Relay for Life is those things I mentioned above, but it is so much more. It is a picture of what happens and what we need to happen during the cancer journey. Sometimes we need someone to stand side by side with us and help us take every step. Sometimes we need someone just ahead of us to show us the path and where we are headed. Sometimes we just need to know someone is on the sidelines cheering us on; strangers and friends.
The Relay for Life event is a celebration of what is done all year long. It is not just a community gathered on one night to celebrate victories, although pausing each year to celebrate where you’ve come is vitally important. Its about walking through the accomplishments on any of the 365 days that lead up to that point. And victories look like lots of things: hair growing back, getting through layers of reconstructive surgery, increased time between when you have to see you doctor, weening off medicine, increased energy, “high counts,” taking off your mask, oh there are so many little things to celebrate.
Somedays 10 years ago seems like a different lifetime and others I can remember all the feelings, smells, exhaustion, and support.
This morning I was reading the Bible from the book of Joshua. Ive always loved the symbolism of the Jordan River rocks. I use to have one on my desk that said “God is Faithful” and my mother-in-law has a big one on her hearth that her kids gave her several Christmases ago to remind them of his healing. In a way for me, these posts of that journey serve a river rocks – reminders of the journey God has brought me through and His faithfulness to the Promises to not give us more than we can handle and to walk right beside us. But 2 promises I love more than that are – Romans 8:28, where He promises to work everything together for our good. The other is the Abrahamic Covenant where He promises to Abraham to make his descendants as many as the stars in the heavens or the grins of sand in the dirt (that’s a lot!). God goes on to tell him – I will bless you to bless others so that people will know I am God.
Relay for Life is a symbol of that to me. A community of people coming along side you to support you and getting to see first hand how God shows up in BIG ways for His children.
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