(This is a column I wrote for the Ashland City Times last week.)
The year my brother was diagnosed with lymphoma I truly learned the meaning of the phrase, “pray without ceasing.” I thought I knew it before, but I didn’t. I knew how to pray occasionally, or to pray every day. But to pray without ceasing – that’s something you learn to do quickly when you find out a loved one has cancer. You pray for healing, you pray for peace, you pray for hope, you pray for comfort. You just pray. And you don’t stop.
People have asked me why we have people walk all night during Relay. The answer to that question is because cancer doesn’t stop either. Every second we pray, cancer works just as hard to insinuate itself deeper into the lives of those it affects all over the world. Just because we go to sleep at night cancer doesn’t stop spreading. We get up and go to work in the day and cancer keeps right on working, too.
Another thing people don’t always know about Relay is that it doesn’t stop at 5am May 16 when we go home from our Relay event. The American Cancer Society, and therefore Relay, works all year to research for cures, to help affected families and to raise money to aid in these efforts. We can work on Relay all year long.
There are lots of things on the agenda for the actual Relay event. We’re having our annual Womanless Beauty Review, we’re getting a great lineup of entertainers ready to keep our music going all night. Our teams have been working hard on the silent auction as well. I’ve been told about all sorts of wonderful baskets full of goodies as well as some vintage Barbies and autographed Pat Head Summit items – including a Pat Head Summit Barbie. Our teams are preparing a variety of good food for Relay. We’ll have grilled burgers, hot dogs, spaghetti, pancakes, walking tacos and, of course, lots of coffee! GoJump will be there and one of our teams is having a carnival theme with lots of fun things for kids to do.
My six-year-old son told me the other day that Relay is one of his favorite events of the year (the other is Summerfest). He asks me every day if it’s time for Relay yet. Come on out and join us on May 15. You don’t have to stay the whole night even though we’d love to have you. Have some supper, listen to some good music, laugh a lot during the womanless beauty review and honor those who have had cancer during the luminaria ceremony. It’s a great night to celebrate life and renew our hope for a future without cancer!
