Last Friday I took a vacation day, drove to Utah and helped support my mom at the Relay For Life. My mom was on the organizing committee, specifically in charge of registration and accounting. My duties were to help with entering registrations into the database and then helping to balance the monies as they came in so we could get all donations off to the American Cancer Society.
I participated in the Relay in 1998 as part of a team and spent several hours walking. It was an incredible experience then and it was an incredible experience this time. I hope to participate again next year as well. The experience is refreshing, helping to wash away all of the stupid political battles that I deal with at work and petty everyday troubles. For 2 days, my focus was on doing my little part to make this event a success and that is such a better way to expend energy.
The event was an emotional experience for everybody involved. They kicked the event off with a survivor’s lap, in which all cancer survivors in attendance made a lap around the track. The next lap was the caregiver’s lap, in which survivors took another lap around the track with the people that helped them get through their battle. My dad and I joined in this lap with my mom.
The most tear-jerking moment for me was when my mom gave a speech during the kick-off ceremony just before the survivors lap. It was beautiful and I will admit my eyes were watery. I’m going to reprint my mother’s speech here:
Some people want it to happen,
Some wish it to happen,
Others MAKE it happen.
In an effort to bring that thought to life, I’m going to share a few personal experiences from my life.
My first story begins when I was 10 years old. My grandmother had just gotten home from the hospital, and I went with my mother to visit her. I went to her basement to watch TV while Mom and Grandma visited. Eventually, I decided to go upstairs and see what was going on. I heard voices in my Grandmother’s bedroom, and went in to find my Mom. As I opened the door, I saw my Grandmother showing her incisions to my Mother. I was shocked to see two long incisions where her breasts should have been. I knew that Grandma was embarrassed for me to see her that way, and I closed the door and left real quickly. As I went back downstairs I wanted…
I wanted for no other little girl to see her grandma that way, I wanted for no other grandma to be embarrassed by her grand-daughter seeing her that way, I wanted for no other daughter to have to comfort her mother who has lost something to cancer. I wanted!
Coming forward several years, I lived in Peoria, IL at the time, and my parents lived in the Salt Lake area. As I was sitting on the couch reading a book to my young daughter, the phone rang. It was my mother calling to tell me that she had just been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Once again, I wanted.
I wanted to be closer to my mother, so I could give her a hug, and tell her that I’d be there for her, I wanted for no other mother to have to tell her young daughter that her grandma has cancer, I wanted for no other daughter to feel lost and helpless as to how to help her mother with cancer, I wanted for no other mother to have to call her daughter and tell her that she has cancer. I Wanted!
A few years later, we got a call that our 15 year old nephew had been diagnosed with Leukemia. I asked hundreds of question as to how they found it, what made them check it. My first thought was “What if this was one of my kids?” We were living in Cedar City at the time, and our nephew’s family was in Kansas. We heard of the trials that he was dealing with – chemotherapy, radiation, remission, recurrence, remission, bone marrow transplant tests. 2 years later, we got the call that our nephew had lost his battle with cancer, and that the funeral would be in a few days. As we drove home from Kansas, I wished.
I wished that no other mother would ever have to bury her first-born son. I wished that no other brothers and sisters would have to watch their brother die. I wished that no other children would have to travel half-way across the country to attend their cousin’s funeral. I wished!
One and a half years ago, As I walked out of the doctor’s office and told my husband that it was cancer, I decided to make something happen. The first thing that I had to make happen was to beat the demon inside of me.
Now that I have been given a clean bill of health, it is time for me to quit wanting, quit wishing, and start making things happen.
Alone, I can’t do very much in this fight against cancer. But if I get all of my friends and family, and they get all of their friends and family, if you get all of your friends and family, and they get all of their friends and family, we can make a difference. We can help to make current cancer patients lives more comfortable, providing support and care as they face difficult decisions and treatments. We can contribute to increasing the survival rates of cancer patients. We can contribute to the efforts to find a cure. We can contribute to new treatments that are more effective with fewer side effects. We can contribute to the research that could eliminate cancer.
So, with your help, we can MAKE IT HAPPEN!
- Written by Jeanette Ormond
On the outside, I try to project an image of having it all together. But underneath that, I'm kind of a disaster. Hence... the name of the site: GlossyVeneer. 
