Keeping Up with the Knightons: Relay for Life

This year, for the very first time, I participated in Relay for Life. I was a little nervous about doing it, mainly I was fearing the sea of emotions that I knew would surface. This is why I'd said no before. But now that its all said and done, I'm so glad I did it.

I work with a woman named Debbie. She is a terrific cook/baker, a loyal friend to many, a hard worker, an inspiration - let's face it, she's the super-woman all us girls wish we could be. I seriously don't know how she does it all! So Debbie is a breast cancer survivor {twice!} and she is also the staff advisor for Baylor's Relay for Life committee. She has an amazing story and still speaks at events to encourage others in their fights. Because of her, we felt we should have a team for our department. As people started signing up for the team, their stories began to come out. I began to see people, not as the co-workers you pass by in the halls, but as people and the hurt {or joy} they carried for whoever they were "relaying" for. There weren't very many people that could say they didn't know someone who was affected by cancer... there were more that said "my granny had it, my aunt survived it, I lost my dad to it..."

I remember watching t.v. one night with Britt in November 2008. We were flipping through the channels and the Rise Up to Cancer was being aired on all the major channels, so we decided to stop fighting it and watch it. Story after story I watched, I got teary eyed and felt sad. Yet, I also remember feeling so detached from all of the emotion being described... it felt far away from me. Little did I know, only 4 months from then, my own dad would be diagnosed with a stage 4 carcinoma of his stomach. and that we would be thrown right in the thick of things.

Its almost been two years since we lost my dad to cancer. and its still a hard walk I'm learning to navigate through. He is why I decided to Relay. I decided to honor my dad's life and fight. It was an emotional night for sure, but I'm so glad I did it. I was able to watch Debbie walk the "survivor's lap" and be so happy for her and her husband but also cry and wonder, "what if my dad had survived?"

I don't know why it happened the way it did, but I'm beginning to accept it. I still miss him like crazy. But I can't help but smile as I think of how proud he was of us for doing Relay for him. I know he was watching us from heaven with a full heart.