Impetus

To do good thing

Coalmarch participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this past Saturday. As a sponsor of the event it was an eye-opening experience in a lot of ways. We had a tent at the event with the requisite banners and business cards and handshakes all day but something much bigger was going on that I hadn’t expected. After all of the races are done with and the crowd is still milling about picking up swag from the various booths there is a procession.

The members of this final parade at the end of the day are all survivors of breast cancer. I was manning the booth so I didn’t get a front row seat. However from my vantage point at the back something struck me.

There were so… many… people. Men and women both, survivors of the disease. I’d heard the mantra of the Komen foundation before: “A world without breast cancer” but I didn’t get it. The cure for cancer could be a hundred years off; so what they must really be talking about is early detection, where the chances of survival are near 100%. That would put even more people in that procession.

Being a part of it made my heart swell; leaving me exhausted on the trip home such that when Jason called to tell me he thought it went really well I couldn’t help but think that we could’ve done more.

Maybe next year.