Kind of an eye-opening day

I'm sure it's been mentioned in this blog before, but I'll say it again.   In August, I'm walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure in Cleveland.  Go here and here for more information.  Komen is an organization that I've been involved with/donated to for a long time; it was/is the charity/philanthropy for my sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha.  I know they do good work for a cause that affects many people everywhere.  But, even though I have family members who have battled breast cancer and have seen all the press releases and public service announcements, it never really hit me just how prevalent it really is.  Until today.

This morning was my neighborhood's annual yardsale.  I took the opportunity to clear out some of the clutter and unused stuff in the house and raise some money for the walk in the process.  I hung up a poster and had signs up all around letting people know that I was participating in the walk and all the money that I brought in from the sale would be going to Komen.

The signs sparked quite a bit of conversation.  Everybody that stopped by had been touched by breast cancer in some way: they had it themselves, their mother had it, their mother-in-law, their sister, their grandmother.  One woman even talked about her husband having a scare and thinking he might have it.

It was slightly overwhelming to me that if so many people in this small section of this great wide world have been affected by breast cancer, the national or world-wide number must be staggering...  I know this is what all of the breast cancer public relations people have been trying to tell me for years now.  I guess I'm kind of slow on the uptake because for some reason it never really hit home until today.

So while I've known breast cancer research is a worthy cause and have been committed to this walk for quite a while now, I'm now going into it with a renewed outlook and a clearer purpose.

These aren't just nameless, faceless people fighting this disease - they are our mothers, daughters, sisters, neighbors, friends, husbands, brothers, sons...  It is, quite literally, all of us, everywhere.  You, me, the next door neighborhood, the clerk at the cornerstore, the lifeguard at the pool, the man in line behind you at wal-mart.

Why do I walk?  Because I can.  Who do I walk for?  I walk this mile for each one of us.

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