Review Of The Month – Relay For Life

First and foremost, I want you to know that I’m going to ask you to do something at the end of this article. So, if you don’t want to hear about that, stop reading. Now, for the rest of you, as you know, I like to joke a little in my review. But last night, I did something I do every year and it’s not something I will ever joke about. I was at the Relay for Life weekend event. This is an event that raises money for cancer research. Now, every one of you reading this has been touched by cancer in some form. You’ve either survived the insidious disease or know someone who’s survived or lost his or her fight to it. This weekend is for the survivors, those who are caretakers and those who remember. This is my experience while I was there.

Now, it’s not all sorrow and loss, it is fun. But let me start from the beginning and go from there. When I got there, everyone around was still setting up their booths for whatever they were going to be doing to raise money. Whether it’s selling food, crafts, doing a raffle or whatever, it was there. Before the weekend though, the teams were raising money for the American Cancer Society with other projects like concerts, banks put out at different business and other things. But getting back to the weekend, everything officially started at 1:00pm with the mayor of Tamarac coming out and officially declaring the weekend as “Relay for Life Weekend in Tamarac.” Then, the children that were there started the first lap around a course setup in the parking lot of University Hospital. It was filled with cheers and music, a lot of fun I would say. After that, the survivors were driven around the course on different motorcycles and everyone cheered them. I was affected seeing this because I’ve lost three members of my family to cancer. As the day went on, we had dancing, music and other events going on, again a lot of fun. But after the sun went down, there was one thing that will draw tears out of anyone.

There are bags that are decorated for those who did not survive their battles or those who where there helping fight. As the candles inside the bags were lit, all the lights around the track were turned off and everyone walked along in as much silence as possible, looking at the bags seeing the names and the decorations done by the families. I saw people pointing to the bags saying to their children, “That’s you grandma” or “You remember Uncle John.” You see families sitting in front of the bags praying and crying, as the memories of that loved one come back to them. I saw the names of those I lost, I sat down and said my thoughts to them and how much I missed them. Once that was done, the music came back and it was a little more of a party atmosphere again.

This goes on for most of the night. It’s something that I really can’t describe because it’s just my experience. Others have different things come up for them and different experiences. I’m sorry if it sounded like I was rambling but it’s something that I feel strongly about. Now, here’s what I’m going to ask of you. Whether you know someone with cancer or fought it yourself, please go to http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/ and either donate you time or money.