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The Way the World Should Be
by Jen Legier, Customer Service Bibliographer
Imagine you are waiting to cross the street in a suburb of Boston on a hot, humid August afternoon. You can see the heat radiating off the pavement, feel its weight, sense a trickle of sweat starting down your spine. You raise a hand to shield your eyes and look both ways and notice a woman on a bike in the middle of the crosswalk waving you on. You hear a small crowd clapping and cheering from a spot in the shade across the street. You think this is odd but you step out into the street and as you near the other side it is clear that these people are cheering for you. They applaud, stop traffic, offer you water and candy and encouragement with a smile from behind a sign that says "Thank you for walking for me. I'm a breast cancer survivor."
This is the way the world should be. Energy levels are at insanely high levels at 3 a.m. when you are boarding a bus to the opening ceremony or at 5 a.m. when you are waiting in the shower line or eating breakfast with a thousand other people. String cheese, PB&J crackers and orange Gatorade are causes for major celebration at the pit stop after mile 18 on Day One. Strangers in the neighborhoods along the route sit on the lawn cheering, offer their bathrooms, put out coolers filled with cold drinks or their sprinklers to walk through. Men With Heart walk alongside you in their yellow T-shirts, singing and toting backpacks stocked with candy and Tylenol. The Pink Angels (men dressed in pink…tutus and wings and tiaras included) greet you with smiles the size of Texas when you finally shuffle into camp at day's end. Things happen in this world that would seem entirely too kind or enthusiastic or just plain positive for us to handle in our everyday world. This alternate reality appears for three days in Boston and other cities across the country each year. For the past 2 summers I have set aside time to be a part of "The 3 Day"; a weekend long walk stretching sixty miles, preceded by months of fundraising and training and culminating in a closing ceremony that is powerfully inspiring and probably accounts for a good chunk of Kleenex's annual sales. Thousands of women and men walk each year, raise millions and truly become an instant community, sleeping in a 'tent city', forgoing makeup and hair dryers, lancing blisters, cheering on strangers, being evacuated to high school gyms during lighting storms, soaking in the experience and hoping to make it last once they get home, once they are back in the real world.
Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust are the organizers and beneficiaries of this event. Komen for a Cure was launched in 1982 founded on the promise of Nancy Brinker to her dying sister, Susan G. Komen that she would do everything in her power to find a cure for breast cancer. This organization is an amazing one and their once small group now runs a myriad of hugely successful events, organizes political campaigns, and sells a multitude of pink products, all in the name of ending breast cancer forever. Oh, and they manage to inspire a few people to join them along the way, too. The first time I participated it was due to a 3 Day commercial on TV that I just couldn't ignore; it was inspiring enough to get me thinking and I thought about it so much I decided I would 'just do it'.
I signed up without a team, did my own fundraising, and sadly ignored the many emails I received detailing the suggested training routine. I ran track when I was in high school, I'm in decent shape, and I figured I was just going to be walking, so really no training is required, right? Wrong. After the adrenaline rush of Day One wore off, my shin splints made themselves known and I remembered (from those high school track days) that I'd feel that stinging pain in each shin with every step for the next forty miles. I was at the medical tent (with plenty of company) very early the next morning to get taped up for Day Two which had us walking through Massachusetts' Blue Hills; beautiful scenery, wonderful shade, and torturous terrain for those with shin splints. There was a moment when I sat on a bus that afternoon trying to stretch and wondering if I should take the offer of a ride back to camp for the night. Next to me a woman with a knee injury was doing the same. It turns out she was a breast cancer survivor; we got talking and staged our 'escape'. We walked, slowly and probably not very gracefully, but we walked. By Day Three, my taped up shins had had the words "I Think I Can" written across them and those words really were in my head those last miles, getting me through.
When I first signed up I personally knew two breast cancer survivors and I thought of them often with amazement as I heard other peoples' stories, raised money, and walked with survivors like them, some still bald from chemotherapy. A few months before my first 3 Day my father was diagnosed with cancer and I took an unexpectedly giant step closer to the disease itself. He was an extremely brave and uncomplaining patient, and although he was tired and not feeling great that day in August, he was at the finish line with the rest of my family smiling and congratulating me; seeing him there was quite a moment and it is one of many that I will always treasure.
Along the way, this walk becomes a journey; a way to remember those who have been lost, to offer hope and empowerment to those who are battling cancer, to stand up and for those we love who cannot walk themselves, to be a voice for serious dedication to a cure. It becomes extremely important that you get to that finish line on your own two feet no matter what, and everyone around you keenly feels that urgency. Everyone struggles or sprints toward the same goal together; if you finish early, you stay on to encourage those behind you, and they applaud you when they arrive, keeping the positive spirit alive. One of my reasons for walking that first year and for joining the Crew the year after was to help spread the commitment to a cure that the 3 Day represents; this walk is aimed at eradicating breast cancer, but its insistence on finding not only better treatments but also a cure can only mean good things for the battle against cancer in general. Once the mission of Susan G Komen for the Cure is realized, I imagine a new mission will take its place. They've recently become a partner in the Stand Up 2 Cancer effort now underway and I can only guess that their efforts have had a massive ripple effect. Each of us has undoubtedly been touched by cancer; my father recently passed away after his 2 year battle with the disease and this year I'll content myself with supporting my former teammates with donations and support along the way. I will walk in the 3 Day again. I'll think of my Dad and all the other people who have been lost, but I will also feel renewed and hopeful and part of a community. I'll go back because that world is truly the way the world should be.
For more information about the 3 Day visit: www.the3day.org
For more information about the Stand Up 2 Cancer project visit: www.standup2cancer.org
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