Relay For Life is not your typical fundraiser. It is an all-night endurance
event, and it serves as a symbolic reminder of the journey of a cancer
survivor.  Relay begins in the gentle calm of the afternoon, sometimes in
rain with clouds overhead, but nearly always with just a little sun peeking
through.  The crowd is large and tumultuous, determined, committed,
supportive.  We, the collected assembly from every niche and pocket within
a community, all stand together, vowing to make it through this journey and
make a difference.  So, too, does a survivor begin her journey -- amid the
love and support of family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and an army of
medical personnel.  Diagnosis is frightening, and the prospects of just
precisely what to expect over the coming hours (and days, weeks, months, or
even years) are full of unknown shadows -- but company allows everyone to
know and believe that we won't be isolated in the darkness.

Because darkness does drape itself over all. as the sun sets the
candles burn in their own little pockets of light, individuals carry lights
and lanterns and torches, but the dark and cold of night encroach and seep
through warm clothing and blankets.  They only thing that staves off the
cold and discomfort is to keep moving -- keep walking or running or riding,
keep talking and laughing and insisting.  In the cancer journey, this is
the time when it's most possible to give up, to give in, to despair.  "Why
am I here, alone," one might ask -- because despite the hand clutching
yours, you may very well feel alone; your body is host to illness, your
life has changed so much.  But this is the time when survivors in need and
in pain most need one another -- which is what Relay is all about.  By
coming together, by listening and believing and fighting through the
darkest, coldest, hardest times in the middle of treatment, you will make it to the end.

At Relay, the end only begins to arrive when the horizon turns from black
to blue to pearly grey, and those gentle fingers of dawn shoot into the sky
bearing flags of gold and pink and rose.  That light is the brilliance of
hope -- you're almost there, you're nearly through, and you still aren't
alone.  This community, small and hardy and still so very determined, is
standing, sitting, and walking with you, still.  This group of people,
still together at the end, understands the importance of sticking together,
of seeing it through to the very end, of knowing how desperately this
journey will affect each individual life that it touches.  At Relay, and in
fighting cancer, there is always hope -- always the knowledge that what we
do makes a difference, that what we have achieved is groundbreaking, that
what we strive for is, indeed, possible.
                                                                                              -Melissa Lee