Celebrate, remember, fight back

Yesterday we took part in

CANSA Relay For Life

It was a 12 hour activity in Cascades, in Pietermaritzburg. We stayed three hours. With this blog post I want to show my respect to students and staff from the Lutheran Theological Institute, who stayed the whole night. Well done!

While were still present a program was held with some touching parts as well as a guest speaker. Most touching, for me, was when a group of survivors walked a lap together. (We were all gathered around a short track.) This was the celebrating part. The guest speaker, also a survivor, was also part of celebration.

The empty space ...

Another part was remembering those who have died. An empty table was placed in the middle of everything, symbolising all those spaces that are now empty, because someone passed on. But even in this part of the event, it was pointed out that there is also hope, symbolised by a candle on the table.

I guess the rest of the night was part of fight back. The teams had promised to walk right through the night in groups …

… because cancer neither slumbers nor sleeps.

This was a great community event. Where fund raising was one part and awareness-raising another.

The track was easy to see. On both sides the organizers had put paper bags with
battery lights. Many of the bags had pictures of lost ones. Other bags had names
of survivors or people still fighting against cancer in their own bodies.