Relay for Life 2008

Hello you fabulous, fabulous people,

Last night, you may have figured out by now, was the Relay for Life. I raised a whopping $1105!!! Thank you thank you a million times thank you to those of you who sponsored me or otherwise offered words of support.

It was a lovely evening - started out around 6:30, trying to find our "team" (we didn't know them but had been lumped together because our 2-person team was too small!), followed by a Survivor's Lap. This is always an emotional one for me, especially when I see little kids wearing their survivor ribbons, jumping around the track. Then we started walking, and to be honest, we didn't really look back all night long! Around 10PM they have a luminary ceremony and light all of the candles in memory or in honour of people fighting cancer - VERY emotional and I'm glad I brought my kleenex! Then, some more walking! I took a break at one point to enjoy a free massage by some students, another break to eat a sandwich (and some home-baked cookies), and a 20 minute snooze break with my head on a picnic table at one point. We stopped for about 30 minutes after dark when a torrential downpour hit, but then it passed, leaving most of our luminary candles soggy and drowned out; spent a bit of time trying to re-light the "O" in "HOPE" with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately many of the luminary bags had flopped over in the rain, making for some burnt paper and some dramatic photographs. Anyway, for the rest of the night, we walked, and walked, and walked some more.

One of the things that makes this event so memorable, to me, is how everyone comes together for this one night, under this one, incredibly powerful common experience. One of hope, perseverance, pain, rejoicing, celebrating, and loving... people are laughing and crying, together. I don't think I've ever met anybody who hasn't been affected in one way or another by cancer, and the thought that maybe we CAN actually make it history - is a pretty powerful idea. We're on the way, together. This is so much bigger than any one of us.

I got home around 8AM this morning, had a brief snooze, gave my legs a little massage, and I'm taking it easy for the rest of the day. I just wanted to say THANK YOU (again) for all of your support, and making this another amazing event. I thought of each of you last night.

If you'd like to take a look at some photos from the evening, go to:

Photos from Relay for Life 2008

Love and thanks,
xoxo
Vanessa~*



PS - If you want to donate, the online fund-raising page is still open, until June 21st I think, at https://secureccs.ca/eventmodule.aspx?lng=en&did=2&eid=33&pg=personal&inv=d86c6223-ba49-4ffb-b34f-108146eb1e49