As blood cancers commonly affect young and old alike, it was very much the family event. Full of happy dancing kids, laughing adults and then of course tears. During the welcome speech a Survivor spoke of his story; my throat tightened. I turned my head and caught sight of the lady next to me, she was crying, tears rolling down her face. I saw a young teen proudly sitting in the wheel chair, smiling and laughing, only the hair giving the cancer label away.
It really was an uplifting atmosphere. I think the 80’s punk rock tribute band added fuel to the fire here. I was so surprised when my shy girl Evie, grabs my hand, starts wiggling her shoulders and then pulls me to the front of the stage to get down with the best of them. And when I say best of them, I mean all the other 2-5 year olds dancing up a storm. They dance how you dance when alone in the house doing housework or in my case, not alone in the house and probably avoiding doing housework (sorry Nick). You know, arms flailing, heads banging, booty shaking kind of thing.
I also got the opportunity to meet a beautiful lady I will call Bessie. She has been one of the rainbows on this journey and has gone above and beyond to help our family. So I got lots of hugs from Bessie and I achieved my goal of crying within 5 minutes of my arrival.
After a little bit of housework dancing, crying and carb loading (any excuse) we started the walk. All armed with our lanterns. Evie really made the night, she held her lantern and 3 glow sticks high for half the circuit. At this point we decided to speed things up a bit, burn of some of those carbs and move from a shuffle to a walk. Ambitious I know. The sea of lanterns bobbing around the park was really very beautiful, red = support, gold = in memory, white = survivor. I held a red for now but next year, that white one has my name on it!
Here’s some pictures, you’ll be relieved to note there’s no housework dancing or carb loading images included.
Thank you again for all those who sponsored me and cheered me on from afar. Lots of love!