Put a Cap on Cancer

The first American Cancer Society Relay for Life that I attended was in 1998. My sister Pat was still gallantly fighting her battle and she wanted to go to the Relay to show her support. The team which her co-workers from the paper mill had formed was dedicated to her and the war she had been entrenched in for five years.

She had an old wool blanket in her truck that we took out so that she could sit on the ground after the one lap she had walked had done her in. Somehow that blanket ended up in the back of my car and it is still there, moving to each different car I’ve owned.  

June 18, 1999, I went down for the Relay for only a short time. Pat had passed away earlier that day and I really didn’t feel like facing a lot of people. But if I had thought the year before that the paper mill had devoted their team to Pat, in 1999, the support was immeasurable. Bag after bag during the luminaria ceremony bore her name.

The following year I couldn’t help but form my own team. We petered out after five or six years, but I still made an appearance at our town’s Relay for Life almost every year. This year, sadly, I need to go out of town that day. That doesn’t mean I won’t be there in spirit.

They are doing a lot of different things for the Relay for Life this year, one being the Capping Cancer Campaign. 

The streets of Tomahawk have been lined with strings of caps since last week, leading up to the Relay kicking off tomorrow morning. You can read all about it in our local paper, The Tomahawk Leader.