A Beautiful Night

Friday night I attended my first Relay for Life, a fundraiser to help find a cure for cancer. Donors support relay teams for lapping a running track and the donations go the American Cancer Society. It's a great party! It's a celebration of survivors and also of those that have succumbed.

The Relay starts as cancer survivors take the first lap of the evening. All sorts of people made their way around the track. The youngest, a 3-1/2 year old brain cancer survivor, took it all in from atop her aunt's shoulders. One elderly woman sat on a walker with a seat in it, pushed along by friends as she faced backwards, waving and talking to other survivors coming up behind her.

I'd guess approximately 75 survivors circled the track in their distinctive purple survivor t-shirts. One survivor was missing Friday night. My friend Shawn Hauenstein lay in his hospital bed in Salt Lake City, enduring aggressive treatment to battle his second bout with leukemia.

We texted photos of the night to Shawn, including one of the luminaria that we made for him. Luminarias are white paper lunch sacks that are decorated and placed around the perimeter of the track. As darkness falls, a candle is placed inside, illuminating the decorated bag for everyone to admire as they walk past. It is a silent and emotional testimony to family and friends that have and haven't beaten cancer. There must have been several hundred flickering memorials rimming the edges of the track.

Shawn has beaten cancer once and he's going to beat it again. Stay strong Shawn! We love you, buddy! I wish you could have been there with us Friday night.

The American Cancer Society is making exciting advances towards defeating cancer! Their website, www.cancer.org, can direct you on how to get involved with the fight in your community.

I'd really like it if you'd drop Shawn a note. He is a great guy! Today, via text message, he told my daughter that he hasn't been able to keep any food down for 10 days. He's pretty down right now so any encouraging words could brighten his day.

His email is: zaptoday@aol.com and we've established a Facebook group for him and you can leave a note there too: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8591023207

Last night at the Relay I spoke with a middle-aged woman named Patti. Diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma, she had just received her first "clean" blood scan. "I just want to live," she replied, when asked what her future plans are now that she's in remission. "A lot of people live in fear. But I can't dwell on that."

She looked down in her lap at her folded hands, patiently regarding them, as if her next words would be found inside their clasp. Then, raising her head, she gazed across the track, looking past the flickering luminarias, over the shadowy tree tops surrounding the track and beyond into the darkening night sky.

"I just want to live. What else is there?"