Last Friday evening into early yesterday morning, or later on the next few weekends, people will be taking part in the Canadian Cancer Society’s “Relay for Life”. It’s an inspiring, tiring, and often poignant night.
I was in a couple of Relays in recent years. In the first we met at a sports site with a track in back of Yarmouth, pitched a tent in a grassy field with dozens and dozens of others, and were fascinated immediately by the experienced teams who arrived more ready for the event than our team of novice teachers: wild costumes, signs, banners, and enough camping equipment to make the night really special even for those not on the track. We made vows to get more “geared up” the next year.
If you’re not familiar with the relays, the procedure is that you have to form a team of at least ten, and be prepared to have at least one member of the team (usually a few) walking on the track at all times for the next 12 hours– generally from 8 p.m. until morning. Each team member has to raise at least $100 in pledges. We fudged things a bit, since some of us knew that staying awake all night would play havoc with our sleep cycles, and since about half of our team lived in the Yarmouth area and half back here in Barrington. We set up a system where the Barrington bunch started off the night, and about 2 a.m. the Yarmouth half, having grabbed at least a nap or two, arrived as relief and allowed us to get home and to bed by about 3 a.m.
We had to arrive early. Although the Relay portion started about 8 p.m., there were “opening ceremonies” and special events before we started. These were not boring “I’d just as soon not be there” formalities; in fact, the late shift people were somewhat disappointed not to be on hand for them. Some of the speakers were recovered cancer patients, a few seemingly snatched back from the brink of death, and some some spoke in honor of people who were stalwarts in the Relays of the past, but during the last year the fight they thought they might win had turned against them.
To kick off the start of the Relay, there was a “Parade of Survivors”— people who had been hit by the monster and either (you could make a likely judgment on some of them) had beaten it soundly, or were just struggling to keep on, hoping to be around for another year. The Maple Grove Memorial Club, a tremendous group of about 80 students from a local junior high dedicated to remembering veterans, formed a corridor of large Canadian flags leading to the track, and, led by the RCMP in dress serge, the yellow-shirted survivors marched down to the track and started their lap. Some looked as healthy as any of us, some rounded the track with canes, and several were in wheelchairs. The rest of us, clad in our white Relay T-shirts, watched from the fence, lumps in our throats, certainly glad not to be with them, but somehow feeling guilty for our good health. But we would do our humble part when they finished and twilight gradually descended.
Our team from my high school was called “Remembering Wendy”. Wendy had been my co-counselor in the guidance office for the past number of years. Drafted into the part-time counseling job because of her natural abilities in that area, in 2003-04 she managed to get a sabbatical to take the full Masters in Counseling program at Acadia. During that year, her love life blossomed, and in June of 2004 she capped the study year off by getting married in a beautiful outdoor ceremony. Everything seemed going her way, and she was obviously very happy.
That fall, Wendy started having back pain that for a while came and went, then steadily got worse and worse. Her doctor fed her pain medications for months without helping, and in early 2005 she had to leave off school completely. On Valentines Day she went for a bone scan, urged, not by her doctor but by a chiropractor I had recommended she see. It was cancer in her pelvis, and further testing diagnosed it as Ewing’s Sarcoma, more common (and more curable) in children, and at stage 4. Despite her intent to fight it, and thousands praying for her recovery, subsequent news only got worse and worse and no fight was ever mounted. She died on March 26, married only nine months.
We were there in her memory, in June of that year of her death, as we were the following year when rain forced the relay inside the Yarmouth arena. Around the edges of any track at a Relay for Life are hundreds of white paper bags with candles inside, called “Luminaries”, each purchased in memory of someone who died from cancer, or in honor of someone who had beaten it. Luminaries in memory of Wendy were scattered around with the others. I had provided the organizers with a picture of her for each, and we sought them out as the night went on.
While the opening ceremonies are inspiring, later in the dark of night things are almost magical. You are tired and that alone gives an ethereal feel to the event. Hundreds representing the many teams circle the track, lit only by the glow of the Luminary candles. You recognize names and faces on some of the Luminaries easily as you circle. Bands and singers on the stage some distance away provide entertainment for those taking a break, but they are only background to your thoughts as you walk on through the dark night. Groups and individuals merge and break as conversation comes and goes, but many just keep to their own thoughts. I see Wendy’s face now and then on the Luminaries and wonder how this all has happened so quickly.
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The third year the school team didn’t go. I had retired, and the woman who had organized us in the first place couldn’t raise a team of ten from the forty-some teachers at the school. She and a few others joined teams from her home area rather than not go. She said that when she sent around notice of the event, she just didn’t get the interest. There were a lot of new teachers who had not been with us in the years before. New teachers are often gung-ho for adventures like that, but strangely this time it just wasn’t there.
When approached one on one, to see if their participation could be coerced, she said there was one common question:
“Who’s Wendy?”
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Hi Francis,
I still think of her often, especially now that I am using her textbooks for many of my courses. Robyn Crowell and I have been working on getting the plaque made that was to be hung in the Guidance area, in her memory. The longer we wait, the less likely it is to happen.
Wendy D.
There are days when I am driving down the road by myself and I think about Wendy and the conversations we shared, playing cards with Brian, George, Sharman and Wendy, discussing politics and having Wendy be the moderator, etc. and then the tears come. To say that I miss her is an understatement. The nicest person I have ever known.
Sadly, with Wendy’s passing I hear more and more of people with one form or another of cancer.
Wade