"Slumber parties and swing sets, malls and movie theaters. That is what comes to mind when you think of childhood friendships. But when your best friend has cancer that is not how it works. You spend summer afternoons in his hospital room or in the play area at Texas Children’s, because he is going through chemo. The nurses know you as “Warren’s girlfriend” because you are up at the hospital so often. When movies come out in the theaters, you wait six months knowing that they will be out on VHS soon enough, and then you can bring them up to the hospital and watch them together. You are only four years old, so you do not fully comprehend what cancer is, but you grasp enough to know that your best friend is very sick, and there is nothing that you can do to help him.
That is when you are four years old. When you become a teenager though, there is something you can do. You are now able to make a difference, to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. To make an impact and do what you can to help rid the world of cancer. No longer do you have to sit in the hospital feeling helpless because all you can do is be a friend to your buddy who has cancer. Now you can make a difference, and when you grow up in a world full of cancer and sorrow, you are determined that you will make a difference.
There is a wonderful program called Relay for Life that strives to create a world that will one day be cancer free. They organize “relays” which in essence are local events where people are able to come out and help raise money to donate to the American Cancer Society. This year, two friends of mine and I decided that we were going to get our school involved in this event. We gave up our lunch periods for three months prior to the Relay in order to raise awareness, and help get our peers involved. When the Relay finally rolled around, we had over one hundred and twenty students and staff from our high school sign up. That night our team, Team Cy-Falls, was able to help volunteer throughout the evening and actually get into the Relay. We worked the Children’s Carnival games, we sold food and fundraiser items, we helped out the honorary Survivors there. We ran a “Fight Back Ceremony” in which over one thousand people who attended pledged to fight against cancer, even after that year’s Relay for Life was over with. Our school raised over a thousand dollars to donate to the American Cancer Society, and after the event we all felt as if we had done something to fight back against this enemy named cancer. All of my peers left Relay for Life feeling accomplished, and knowing that I was one of the people who got them involved in this made me feel like I was finally doing something to make a difference after passively sitting back and watching cancer take over my friends life.
I vividly remember the days I would spend up at the hospital with Warren. I know we had fun there, even though we were stuck in certain areas of Texas Children’s. I remember wondering why it was Warren who had to get cancer and get sick, who had to lose his vibrant red hair, who had to endure all of the needles and medicine and treatment that goes along with being a cancer patient. I remember wanting to do something more than just make him smile, and knowing that I was only a child, there was nothing I could do to make this world cancer-free. Cancer was so much bigger than me, I was just four years old when he was diagnosed. After Relay for Life, I felt a kind of peace pass over me, a triumphant feeling that now I am finally doing something that will make a difference. Warren may be cancer-free now, but we all still live in a world that is stricken with cancer daily. Cancer is still so much bigger than I, but now I have the ability to do what I can to change that. To one day live in a world without cancer."
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