Rely for Life

Today was Rely for Life. It was a BEAUTIFUL day to be outside-sunny and a little breeze. It's sponsored by the American Cancer Society and my mom asked me to participate with her. It was at the Tuscola County Fairgrounds here in town. It was an amazing sight to see all the people there to help find a cure for cancer. There were so many "teams" as they called it-they had everything from fresh baked breads to hand crafted items. I had to laugh a few times, because it looked like cousin Bubba went to Walmart to get a cardboard box and a can of spray paint and made a sign that said "walk a freak for a cure" and they really, really were freaks with dog collars and leashes around their necks and had people walking them around the fairgrounds! Mom worked with a group that did baked goods and coffee and cappuccino. We walked around the track a few times and left for a little bit-we went to grab some dinner and came back to the house so that mom could rest up a bit. Then we went back closer to dark to see the luminary portion of the Rely to begin. We were talking about it when we walked around the track that there were so many luminary bags-white lunch bags with in memory of or Survivor on them-that it's just a small portion of all the lives lost to cancer. It will be such a joyous day when Jehovah will bring an end to all this sadness.

The Fairgrounds-all those white bags are the luminary bags


Me and my mommy. I'm proud of our self portrait
I made the bags for mom-though she'll say she made them :) This is for his older sister Sue who passed away from breast cancer when I was very young.
This bag is for my mom's mom-my grandma. She passed away from colon cancer.

This is my mothers bag-she is a survivor of breast cancer and I learned tonight that I was her caregiver when she lived with me in Pontiac as she underwent her radiation treatments. I'll always be my mommy's caregiver. I love her very much.

My mom and Jan. Jan works with my mom in the pharmacy at VG's

while mom worked hard at serving coffee....I worked hard on self portraits

I think I did pretty good on this self-portrait.

This was the beginning of the luminary part of the Relay. They had 4 people come up on stage and give a little story and had these huge boxes on stage with candles in them.

Some of the bags that had the candles lighted in them.

Mom was one of the first groups to light her candle since she was a survivor.

My candle was lighted up because I was a caregiver-some lady asked if I wanted her to take my picture-I said no that's okay I got it. Hey you never know she could have ran away with my camera. Okay the lady was actually nice, she asked me if I could take a picture of her family with her camera and also used my candle to light her daughters.

Mom sharing her flame with a couple guys in the bleachers.

The track that we walked on the little lights are are peoples candles flickering-yes they warned us to keep the candles at a safe distance from "our person and the persons around us"

Our bags with there candles lighted inside of them.