It had been a long time since I did any significant
fundraising for anything. I do try to donate time and money when I can, though lately
I feel like I haven’t done anything. I haven’t even been shipping to soldiers
regularly…
In October 2005 I was pregnant with Spice and took part in a
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in Boston. It was an amazing
experience walking with so many. Everywhere I looked there were women wearing “Survivor”
sashes and women wearing shirts that said, “In memory of…” It was heart
wrenching and humbling and something that I vowed to do again.
It is shameful then, that I haven’t participated in this
fundraiser since that time. I loved the walk, I loved telling people what I was
going to do and have them donate to my cause. I felt empowered all those years
ago, handing over $1000 to the American Cancer Society. When you do something like
that, you feel like you have your very own ray of sunshine for a moment.
This year I have two friends currently in treatment, so it
was obvious to me that I should raise funds and walk again. Now that Sugar and
Spice are 11 and 6, there’s no reason they couldn’t both walk with me. They
know what breast cancer is, they know their friends mom has it. They’ve seen
her go through surgery and lose her hair as a side effect to the chemotherapy.
What they don’t know is that nearly 300,000 women will be
diagnosed with breast cancer this year. They don’t know that with early
detection survival rates are over 90%. They don’t know that every woman on
their dad’s paternal side of the family has had breast cancer… So the odds of
two of their aunts getting breast cancer is pretty high. Therefore, my girls’
odds are slightly higher than my own. It’s a no brainer that this is something
we should ALL care about.
With two weeks to go until the event, I signed up and joined
the walk on my neighbor’s team. As I raised $1000 last time, I set that goal
for this year as well. I doubted that I would make it, given that I signed up
so close to the event. Ten days, two emails and one Facebook post later, we
were at the fundraising goal that I set for our mini-team within a team.
The girls asked every day how much we had raised, and who
had donated to the cause. They were very excited to get the updates regularly.
It’s funny, I don’t know when I realized it, but it came to my attention that
Spice, who HATES to walk, didn’t know that by accepting these donations, we
made a commitment to walk 3.5 miles.
Of course she said she wouldn’t walk. So I did what every
good mother does. I bribed her. I knew full well that there would be women
walking that would be dressed from head to toe in pink… so I offered up a pink
feather boa like her friend Fancy Nancy has. She immediately snapped up the
deal.
Sunday was a gorgeous day and the girls were happy to jump
out of bed and throw on every pink item they owned. I told them that they could
wear whatever they wanted, but had to wear good walking sneakers. Of course
Sugar changed 37 times and Spice came up with a shorts and tutu combo that
delighted her.
This walk was much, much smaller than the one I participated
in years ago. But still there were so many walkers out to show support for a
great cause. The girls LOVED being part of something so big. Spice kept looking
around saying, “There must be a million people here.”
EN tagged along with us and the four of us finished the walk
with minimal fighting and complaining. Spice said she was quitting when we had
a mile or so left, so I bribed her again. By then we were all starving, so I offered
up ice cream and she practically trotted through the finish line.
I am glad to have shared this event with my family this time
around… and I hope to make this a family tradition for us.
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| Sugar and Spice with their friend Spice Two in the middle. Let's make sure these girls never have to worry about breast cancer! |
xoxo
Ice Princess
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