Hope prevails at storm-interrupted Relay
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| Relay committee member Megan Demoura captured this rainbow, which graced the Norton High School track after a thunderstorm upended the 25th Relay For Life of Greater Attleboro. |
The Relay For Life of Greater Attleboro held its 25th anniversary
event last weekend, and despite dealing with an ill-timed thunderstorm that rolled over the Norton High School track an hour before the opening ceremony, managed
to raise more than $47,000 to date.
The storms forced some changes to the relay’s schedule, but the one thing that
it couldn’t do was to dampen the participants’ spirits, or blunt the optimism
and hope that the relay has always been known for.
My column, which appeared in the Monday, June 12, 2023, edition of The Sun
Chronicle of Attleboro, MA, discusses10 ways in which hope shined through the
storm. Here’s the link to the column as it appears on the newspaper’s website:
https://www.thesunchronicle.
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NORTON --- The severe thunderstorms that pounded the Attleboro area, including
the Norton High School track, late Friday afternoon played havoc with the 25th
anniversary of the Relay For Life of Greater Attleboro, a team fundraiser for
the American Cancer Society.
Storm clouds had threatened a few times Friday afternoon, but when lightning
and torrential rain forced those setting up their campsites to flee to the
cafeteria at 5 p.m., an hour before the scheduled opening ceremony, the event
was upended. Some of the 21 teams and 134 participants registered either stayed
home or came late, while some activities were canceled.
But the storm couldn’t wipe out the hope that has been a foundational part of the
relay since its inception in 1999 at North Attleboro High School. Evidence of
the participants’ resiliency abounded. Here’s my Top 10 list of some ways that
hope prevailed:
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| Survivors and their caregivers take the first lap at the Relay For Life. (Photo by Larry Kessler) |
Before the storm, I was kneeling down to set up luminaries --- lit for cancer survivors and in memory of the disease’s victims --- along the track when I lost my balance and fell over. A member of team Bam Bam’s Beauties immediately came over and helped me back on my feet. The fall had only bruised my ego, but the support was gratifying.
9 and 8. Survivors’ laps
The traditional first lap of the relay, taken by survivors and their caregivers, was delayed more than an hour, but it was nonetheless inspiring to see. The survivors personified the hope that we’ll eventually see a day when cancer has been conquered.
Ditto for the silent lap, which is held as part of the luminaria-lighting ceremony. The lap, led by
bagpiper Jake Dennett, a Norton police officer, lets people remember loved ones lost to the disease in their own way.
7. Artfully done
A silent auction of luminaries decorated by 18 artists in February at the Attleboro Arts Museum was curtailed by the weather, but hope prevailed. Many of those luminaries, lovingly crafted during Attleboro’s Winter Night Festival, found new homes.
6. Business of relay
When Relay Chair Barbara Benoit announced that nearly $47,000 had been raised as of Saturday morning’s closing ceremony, it was further evidence that working together still makes a huge difference. That total will grow as many teams are still collecting money.
5. A team named Peacock
Jakob Carlson and Ericka Speeckaert of Attleboro joined the relay’s volunteer committee last year, and this year started a team called “Mrs. Peacock’s Sole Squad.”
Like their fellow volunteers, their reasons for relaying are personal.
Jake honored his grandmother who died of cancer in 2014, while Ericka relayed in memory of her mother Carolyn, who passed in 2016. “We knew we wanted to do something that was meaningful to us,” Ericka said.
She also explained how their team got its name. Her mother taught elementary school in Pawtucket and when her students couldn’t pronounce Speeckaert, they called her “Mrs. Peacock.”
4. Overcoming struggles
Ivy Vine has been a member of team Gramma’s Angels for 10 years, and despite temperatures in the 40s overnight, she camped out with her kids to teach them that “when you have cancer, you have to make the most out of” whatever hardships come along. “The night is to overcome the struggles” like cancer patients must, she said.
3. Education and funding
Former longtime state representative Kevin Poirier of North Attleboro, joined by his wife Betty, also a longtime state rep, was a guest speaker, just as he was at the first relay in 1999. He talked about how losing his oldest brother to prostate cancer led to him becoming more knowledgeable about the disease. For instance, he said that back then, when he was asked what his PSA was, he didn’t know that it stood for “prostate specific antigen.”
“I knew very little about prostate cancer,” he said, adding that he went to work on Beacon Hill and eventually got $1 million earmarked in the state budget to start a prostate cancer awareness program, something he said that’s still in place.
“We’re a lot further than we were 25 years ago” to stamping out cancer, he added.
2. Stirring words
Jonathan Gardner of East Bridgewater, a 20-year-old self-described “cancer survivor who happens to have autism,” inspired the crowd jammed into the Norton High School cafeteria for the opening ceremony, by sharing several lessons he’s learned from his cancer journey since being diagnosed in 2021 with Ewing sarcoma, a rare cancer of the bones or soft tissue around the bones. His lessons included:
* Give up some control. “Cancer is extremely hard to do, but you have to give up some control. I am a little bit of a control freak myself so I know how hard this will be.”
* “Find joy in every day. Take something positive out of every single day.”
* Ride the wave, which he said consists of imagining yourself falling off a surfboard, and then climbing back on it. “If we can picture ourselves riding that wave, we can try and feel more secure knowing that we will
have our control back one day when we get to shore.”
* Pray, because “when you are in a hard place, sometimes the best option I can give you is to pray.”
1. A divine miracle
People returned to the track after 7 p.m. to find sunny skies --- and a glorious rainbow. Dozens of camera phones immediately pointed skyward to capture what was nothing less than a divine miracle.
That wasn’t the first time that a rainbow had appeared at a relay, but it was a most welcome sight on the event’s silver anniversary.
It was as if Mother Nature had joined the celebration.
Larry Kessler, a retired Sun Chronicle local news editor, can be reached at larrythek65@gmail.com. He blogs at larrytheklineup.blogspot.com
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