Alas

**just logged in to blog william wednesday and saw this in my drafts...oops!**

In the Relay world it is emphasized that people share their relay stories.  It isn't always sad; sometimes they are uplifting stories or motivating stories or just stories of people who were looking for an outlet for their charitable bone in their body.  It is emphasized that we share our stories so that we can remind each other of all of the different faces of the American Cancer Society and its mission.  The amazing thing for me is that after all of the stories, sessions, and lessons I learned my "relay story" transformed that weekend.

Obviously, I got involved in Relay for Life as a way to honor and remember my dad.  I don't need any special events or activities to help me remember him, but I just enjoyed the opportunity to actively be involved in something devoted to his memory.  I knew there were different elements to each Relay event and I knew there was a big emphasis on honoring Survivors, but personally my Relay mission was to memorialize my dad.

But then I grew to understand the importance of the other elements of relay too.  The motto is "Celebrate.  Remember.  Fight Back."  The whole time I was celebrating my dad, remembering my dad, and fighting back for my dad.  But I realized I can celebrate a lot more than just him.  I can celebrate the success of the cancer research over the last few decades.  I can celebrate the lives saved.  I can celebrate the 18 year old girl who told us about her parent's struggle with her stomach cancer when she was 1 year old.  I can celebrate the fact that awareness has reached such a level that organizations like the NFL want to partner in the fight.  I can celebrate that TODAY 350 more lives are being saved than the day my dad was diagnosed.  There is so much to celebrate despite the cloudy skies cancer leaves.

More than my new inspiration in celebration, though, I realized I have been overlooking my biggest reason to fight back: William.

I don't want William to know what it's like to see his parents struggle, lose their hair, and fight for their lives.  I don't want William to wonder for 4 years if his parents will see him graduate high school.  I don't want William to fear losing the people who have worked so hard to guard and protect him in this life.  I don't want William to struggle, lose his hair, and fight for his life.  I don't want to ever wonder if he will graduate high school.  I don't want to lay awake at night in fear of cancer for him.  I want to do anything I can to fight this disease so that he never has to know its magnitude.  I want him to think of cancer the way I thought of polio: a devastating disease for generations past that is now just a word in history books.

My "relay story" is much more diverse than I had originally thought.  I relay to celebrate the success of the American Cancer Society and lifesaving research.  I relay to remember my dad.  And I relay to fight back for William, his friends, their children and their children, so that they can learn about cancer in history books instead of hospital rooms. 

It all started because of a loss I will never understand, but I am now motivated to fight back rather than feel defeated.  I feel like this step towards hope is a step in my grief journey which I never knew I'd be able to take.  My relay story doesn't end at the Luminaria ceremony like I thought it did; my relay story goes beyond the closing ceremony and into a fight to end cancer.