A Disease with more Hope

I can’t believe how fast this month flew past me. A little bit of spring cleaning turned into a pile for a garage sale next month, a little landscaping turned into a whopper of a playset, a birthday party turned into donating older toys to a sparse church nursery, a little bit vacation time turned into two trips to two zoos and a lot of catching up with family members (the ones that lived in the zoo’s). It was a really busy month but there was one day that amazingly, should have been the busiest of them all but it turned out to be much different than I thought.


Last Saturday, I, along with other members of ticdesign, took our photographic skills to the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. We were the official shutterbugs for the event and we were all very excited, nervous, and anticipated everything. For many of us, it was our first time ever attending the Relay, including myself.


I don’t know what I expected really. I had a good idea of the logistics of the event thanks to Hope, who has been an active team participant for a few years now. She even warned us that we would be swept up in all the activity and the emotions and told us to just go with it. Ride that rollercoaster.


When I first arrived in the field, I was so excited and honored to be there (and I’ll add extremely grateful that my oh-so-brave-pregnant-with-twins-and-has-an-infant-already-SIL agreed to babysit my two rugrats so I could attend) but I was really trying hard to concentrate on the photography aspect. I was trying to focus on the technical details of my camera and the lighting because to be perfectly blunt, I didn’t want to screw up. I don’t know if I even really believed I was ready to photograph a >gasp< an “event”. I knew even if I did flub every one of my shots that there were plenty of other talented viewfinders behind me to get the important moments but I really wanted to believe that I could manage this.


I was prepared to be running around like a crazed lunatic, talking to complete strangers. I would hide behind my lens and buck up. “Get them to smile”, “Get ‘em to laugh”, “Get ‘em in groups”, “Get every moment I can”, “If you see it, shoot it” (that one was Hope).


So I did. If it moved, >SNAP! <. If it stayed still, >SNAP!<. If it looked at me, >SNAP!<. If it ran away, >SNAP!<. If it was near, >SNAP!<. If it was far, >SNAP!<. You get the idea.


The event unfolded and I watched every little detail of it in my viewfinder. What happened amazed me. I started to forget about lighting, shadows, angles and perspectives. I forgot about my fellow photographers (sorry girls). I started seeing instead, what an incredible event the Relay actually is. Those luminaries. Hundreds. Everyone holding a tiny tealight candle surrounding every square inch of that track. Some in double rows. Evey single one of those represents love, respect, sadness, anguish. Every person that I was looking at, knew someone. Been by their side. Seen the awful consequences of a Cancer diagnosis. The poison of chemo and radiation. Every single person. Every tealight. And every one of them holds on to the same rope of optimism for a cure.


Not only did this Relay remind me and bring me face to face with the realities of Cancer, but it reminded me of every person I worked with back when I was nursing. Every child that had some sort of diagnosis, whether be it Cancer, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Autism, CF, CP, MS, Asthma, Anaphylaxis, and everything else in between and subcategorized. It’s depressing. But what is remarkable is that for every one of the implacable diseases listed in the Merck Manual, there is someone standing behind it holding up a sign of HOPE.


With continuing fundraisers like the Relay for Life, and other walks, runs, and Lotteries, there are masses of people with a common thread. Faith and expectations that there is a means to an end. These fundraisers will not only help lead to a cure, but will eventually become a place where we can all get together to celebrate in victory, the discovery of the cure and better treatments worldwide.



Am I an optimist? After seeing those Survivors rounding the track, you bet I am.

Please help donate whatever way you can to whatever centre for disease you can. Here are a few to get you started:

www.cancer.ca
www.diabetes.ca
www.alzheimer.ca
www.autismsocietycanada.ca
www.cysticfibrosis.ca
www.cpsc.ca
www.mssociety.ca
www.lung.ca
www.asthma.ca
www.anaphylaxis.org

For a full view of what I captured that day, please check here and please be aware that all the images I photographed during the Relay are copyrighted to the Canadian Cancer Society. Please respect this. Use of the images without permission are STRCITLY forbidden.

http://picasaweb.google.com/PixelPiePhotos/CCSEdmRelay?authkey=7MOOKDGGcvU