The Big Night

Relay is tonight. We all know why I do this. It really doesn't need expressing. But, not everyone knows exactly why I relay, and I think my story is one that needs to be told. As Ceremonies Chair, it fell on me to introduce the Luminaria ceremony, and I asked Sheila, our advisor, if I could include personal remarks about what this event means to me, and she said absolutely.

I've spent the last week struggling with my speech. I could have easily introduced the ceremony without any problems. Articulating how I feel about my mom's death (besides the obvious, like it sucked)? Completely different. It's been 18 years. I've never put it in words, and it's not for lack of trying. I spent high school trying to write essays about the impact that it had on me, and I couldn't do it. We all know I usually just use song lyrics to express really intense emotions (see 12/20 entry). I sat at my computer (!...sorry, still excited about it) until 1 am, trying not to cry as I looked at the three sentences I had written and talking to Kayleigh, Jeremy (via facebook), and Emily (via AIM) trying to see if they could help. Finally, I put up an away message and went to bed (after all, I have to be up until 10am). I got up this morning, and it came to me.

Since my 12/20 blog was lackluster, here's the speech...
Hello everyone. On behalf of the entire Ceremonies committee, I would like to welcome you to the Luminaria ceremony. Around the track, you will see a number of luminarias. Each one represents a person who has battled cancer, and some represent those who did not win their battles. This ceremony provides an opportunity to honor those who have fought cancer, and those we’ve lost.

For me, this ceremony has always been the most important part of Relay. On December 20th, 1990, my mother lost her long battle with breast cancer. I was only three years old, so I really don’t know or remember much about her illness or even her death. I do know, however, how much her death impacted my life and the person I am now. I have spent almost my whole life motherless, and it haunts me even now, eighteen years later. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think of her and miss her. At my mother’s funeral, I said to my family “why is Mommy in that box?” It was a question that has plagued me for my entire life, and I have spent the last eighteen years searching for the answer. As a child, and even sometimes as an adult, I had a hard time understanding why something as terrible as the death of my mother had to happen to me and my family. I always felt different from my peers. I was the kid who had to have her father bring her to mother/daughter events at the school, the kid that used to cry at school on the Friday before Mother’s Day every year because I didn’t have a mother to make a card for, and now I’m the girl who is quieter than usual on Mother’s Day while everyone else calls home. I miss her every day, but some days are worse than others. When I was growing up, I missed her for my first days of school, my first sleepover, my proms, graduations, my first relationship and breakup, and the process of applying to and choosing a college. I wish she was here now as I find my way through the beginning of my adult life, and I know that will miss her as my life continues and progresses. But really, the biggest effect of my mother’s death has been the feeling that something is missing. I’m lucky in the sense that I grew up with an incredibly supportive older sister and grandmother who did their best to step into my mother's shoes, and I'm so thankful for that, but no one can fill the void that my mother left behind. I relay so that in the future, no little kid has to go through what I’ve been through. One result of my mother’s death is the drive I feel to battle this disease until it is eliminated.

As you walk the track tonight, please remain quiet while you look around at the luminarias you see. Reflect on those who have been lost, and those who won their battles, and don’t lose sight of the progress we've made, and the hope that one day, we won’t have worry about losing our friends, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, sisters, brothers, fathers, and mothers to this disease. Thank you.

Now, let's hope I can get through it without puking or crying. I'm actually crying now as I edit it, so maybe I can get it out and sensitize myself to it before 10 o'clock tonight.