Most of you are aware that this Friday night was my third Relay for Life, a 12-hour team-based walk for the Canadian Cancer Society. As I believe I’d noted here earlier I had the misfortune of having a boat motor dropped on my foot during the Troutquest fishing trip last month, although it had been feeling quite good as of late. Still, there’s a noticeable bump on top of the foot that may or may not be a bone chip, and it took precisely one lap around the quarter-mile track for my foot to swell up and start pressing against the laces. Great.
Due to some commitments I arrived at 8:30PM, 90 minutes late, and once unpacked and having dropped off the generous pledges I’d received I was on the course at 9:00PM. I’m happy to report that I took four breaks between then and 6:30PM when they pulled us off the course a bit early for a mass chat about the survivors and a memory walk. Those breaks were 5-minutes, 10-minutes, 15-minutes, and 30-minutes. So roughly eight hours of walking. This year I was joining my sister, Kim, again, although our surrounding team was different. Alison Maasland, her mom, aunt, friend Shannon, friend Mike, Shannon’s aunt, and somebody I’m missing were Team Bill-Ann, named for Alison’s father and grandmother who passed one year ago now.
It’s always a solemn but fulfilling event as memories invariably go to those we’ve lost, and it makes it a lot easier to tolerate the pain when you realize what the survivors in attendance have gone through. Still, the drive home is always a painful one, and having arrived at home at 7:30AM I proceeded to collapse into sleep until 12:00.
I wanted to thank those of your who put your trust and funds behind me, and I hope I didn’t disappoint. Thanks to my parents, grandparents, Jeff, Craig and Cheryl, Linda, Leo and Nereda, Jon, Brent, Steve, Ryan, and our resident Zonker House for their kind and generous donations. Special thanks to another resident Zonker, Nobody’s Perfect, who arranged an extremely significant donation that was waiting in my door when I got home Friday and helped boost me to a stunning personal record of $475 in donations! You’re all awesome, thanks!