THE RACE FOR LIFE

So yesterday was the day…. Duly arrived at the venue with number two son and the daughter and met up with my work colleagues, all in our matching bright pink t shirts. So far so good………..

Then I started to look around and every one of the thousands of participants had their personal messages on their back. It was all a bit much seeing such visible evidence of the number of lives this illness affects. Must have been feeling very sensitive yesterday as I started to cry and once the first tear fell, it opened the flood gates and very soon I was in a right state. I hastily pushed Evie to a quieter part of the ground to try and compose myself but by this time I was crying uncontrollably. I got my mobile out and rang my mum, thanking my lucky stars that I still could. Couldn’t talk at all initially and my poor mum was in a real panic wondering what was going on. Eventually I managed to stutter I was ok just very upset and we had a chat and I calmed down. Her parting comment was that I was just a very sensitive person and that was why I had been so affected. So back I went to my colleagues who were by now in the queue to the start line.

Well I did it, though rather than race for life, I pushed! Couldn’t bring myself to leave Miss Evie-D behind so along she came in her pink buggy and we power walked our way round. Saw several very poignant messages along the way – one lady was there in memory of her twin who had died from cancer, which really struck a chord as my mum is a surviving twin (although her twin brother died of a heart attack, aged only 51)……. Further on, a lady had a couple of names of people close to her she had lost to cancer and then her sign read “and me 10 days out of chemo”……. Well I didn’t really need anything to spur me on but that certainly gave me a kick up the bum to stop being such a sap and get on with it.

I had a colleague’s 13 year old daughter walk with me and she was lovely company. We didn’t talk much, just enjoyed having someone to swap the occasional comment with and the rest of the time, we walked in quiet companionship.

It took us an hour to walk round and probably the same to get out of the car park! My overwhelming feeling driving away was of being really empowered at participating in this enormous joint effort where every single person had their own story and every single person made a difference.

Photographic evidence exists, although whether they make it to here remains to be seen. My abundance of sensitivity is accompanied by an overly large dose of vanity and I need to see how fat and sweaty I look first!

Good to be back - I missed you........