Bike and Walk for Life

Every year the children's hospital near me has a bike and walk for life. It's huge, thousands of people show up raising millions of dollars for cancer research. The bike routes are a 200 mile, 100, 50, 35 and 20. If you walk you can choose to walk 5K, 10 or 25. On site there's a tent stocked with free food, free massages, and music playing constantly. There are also tents getting people to sign up to be bone marrow donors and to raise awareness of different research projects.

I volunteered at what I think the best part of the event is. I gave out yellow ribbons. These ribbons are just a long piece of yellow surveyors tape but they stand for the reason many people ride the race. On this ribbon people write the names or messages to the people they want to honor or remember. Then at the end of the course, there is a memorial garden in which people tie their ribbon.

Sitting at the table where people get these ribbons was pretty amazing. Lots of people would write things like "Ride on" and "We miss you" with the person's name. Other people just didn't know what to say. Some ribbons had some many names written on them there was no space for a message, others simply had one name. Most people left the table happy that they had honored their friend or relative. Some walked past the table saying they'd cry if they made a ribbon.

The two dearest things that happen yesterday were:

1) A little boy maybe 7 or 8 walked up all by himself. I asked him if he'd like to make a ribbon. He said that he would so I gave him the ribbon and a sharpie to write with. He writes 'Mom' nothing more, and then leaves.

2) The second is that a women and her very young child came to make a ribbon. She wrote a name on it and her kid asked where that person was. The mother said, "They're in heaven, you can't see them anymore."

I don't know if how meaningful these ribbons are conveys over into writing, but I wouldn't have rather spent my day any other way. Cancer sucks, and I'm so glad to feel like we might be making a dent in it.

*If you look really closely in the back of the photo you can see the memorial garden.