Relay for Life remembers, celebrates, offers hope

That's me in the yellow poncho on the 2010 Survivor's Lap.

It's spring and, all across our country, community members are preparing for their annual Relay for Life. Relay began in Tacoma, Wash. in 1985 when Dr. Gordy Klatt, a colorectal surgeon, ran and walked around a track for 24 hours to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Since then, Relay has grown from a single man’s passion to fight cancer into the world’s largest movement to end the disease. Each year, more than 3.5 million people in 5,000 communities in the United States, along with additional communities in 20 other countries, gather to take part in this global phenomenon and raise much-needed funds and awareness to save lives from cancer

We're just a week away here in Bogalusa, as members of the Washington Parish community will gather at Goodyear Park on April 15. In my 61 years, times have changed from cancer being a disease we seldom heard of to one that has touched nearly every man, woman and child in some way. That is all too evident as one looks on as people gather together for Relay ... young, old, middle-aged, red, yellow, black and white ... there is no immunity to cancer's touch.

Over the years, I've been involved in a 15 or so Relay events in five cities and four states but I never expected to walk that first lap. Oh, I've walked along with those on that lap -- the Survivor's Lap -- walking alongside them, offering encouragement ... but never did I expect to be part of it. That came in Thomasville, NC in the spring of 2005 after my God, my caregivers, my doctors and I kicked "Bubba's" butt. You see, I felt it would be easier to fight something with a name and my head and neck cancer -- metastatic squamous cell carcinoma -- became "Bubba." We fought through 192 hours of chemo, 123 doses of radiation and the loss of 70 pounds in less than five months ... and "Bubba" was whipped.

That Friday evening, as the public address announcer called for survivors to gather on the track, I remember standing there in an "out of it" sort of way. About that time, Thomasville's mayor, Maj. Gen. (USA ret.) Hubert Leonard came up, wrapped his arm in mine and said, "Let's go, John!" And go we did and for the very first time, I understood how very important it was for those onlookers to be there ... to be walking alongside you and offering encouragement ... to care.

Relay for Life is a time when we gather to celebrate. We celebrate the lives of those who have battled this horrible disease – their memories and their spirit – and the lives of those who continue the battle, either actively or with the disease in some stage of remission. But we also gather to celebrate those who stood alongside us … at times when the battle left us too weary to know to know they were there, our hand in theirs … and often behind us, wheeling us along when our legs simply couldn’t do what our minds wanted. … our caregivers.

That year in Thomasville, members of my Rotary Club -- who had never before been involved as a group -- raised more than $10,000 and five of them stayed with me all night long ... visiting with one another and with others who spent the night and taking turns walking laps. I sold some of my fellow Rotarians on the idea of getting involved ... really involved ... and they ran with it. Of course, it wasn't a hard sell and Steve Martin, Joseph Walker and Whitney Hardin made it happen in such a way that I was overwhelmed.

As a survivor of six-plus years now, I would ask all of you who know someone stricken by this disease to take the time to attend your Relay for Life. The Survivor’s Walk kicks things off and the lighting of the luminarias offers all the opportunity to remember our loved ones who have gone on … and I will always remember my fallen friends and family members in a way befitting their respective battles and coined by my cousin, Howard, who finished his fight on Oct. 17, 2007 in Iowa City, Iowa: “My cancer won’t kill me, but rather it will die with me.”

Be there to honor their memory, share strength with them for their fight and to remind one and all that not a single person is in this fight by themselves. Not one.