This was the Lyon team for the Sacramento Race for the Cure. I'm the one in the grey hoodie and big glasses, standing to the left of middle. We raised more than $10,000 as a team. Go Lyon!
If you have not yet participated in a Race for the Cure, you really should. For those of you who hear the word "race" and immediately reach for the remote control, you need not worry. The serious runners start early and run in a pack ahead, while the majority of participants (all 9,000 of you) stroll-along behind. While it takes 90 minutes to negotiate a measly 5k at this pace, it's an opportunity to see human-kind at it's best.
From kids in strollers to 80 year old ladies, the event attracts people from almost every walk of life and in every generation. There are corporate teams combining to raise thousands and generating great team cameraderie in the process; mothers walking arm-in-arm with their teenage daughters; overweight and over-the-hill husbands clutching their wives' hands; plus literally thousands of people walking with the name of someone they knew and loved and who is now gone, stapled to their back on a pink piece of paper. Those women in pink shirts are breast cancer survivors, walking not only for themselves but for those that came before and after them but perhaps were not as lucky. In our company's team, there were at least three survivors that I knew of, plus my friend Vickie whose mother died in March of a different cancer. Vickie walked with her husband, Bill, proudly displaying a photo t-shirt of her mother (who was only 60 years old) and who, in a flurry of tears, was interviewed along the way by a local tv station. I can't imagine life without my mother and I was so proud of Vickie for holding it together to answer the reporter's questions. Of course, she and I both hugged each other and cried afterward.
Joss and I worked at these Susan G. Komen events a lot when we lived in Southern California, so this was definitely not the first time I had attended a Race for the Cure, however it was the first time I had walked vs. worked in one. Even back then, when we were a level removed from the emotionality of the event, we found it incredibly moving. But it was nothing like actually being involved.
Most importantly, I raised almost $400 (thank you to those of you who made that happen) and got to talk to some agents I wouldn't normally have had the opportunity to spend casual time with. I even found a fellow traveler amongst our team, an agent with a wunderlust just as strong as mine. I always enjoy hearing about other people's travels, especially when the person has a passion for travel itself. I find the well-traveled have a very similar outlook on life: a respect (vs. sympathy) for those less fortunate and an open-mindedness to their own reality at home that is hard to find in someone who has not made it far from their country of birth.
1 comment:
Wonderful post, good for you! I had forgotten that you were doing this, and in fact I think I contributed. If I didn't, I will. Go team!
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