"Racing" for a Cure

Yesterday I was honored to participate in the Susan Komen Race for the Cure here in St. Louis. I put racing in ""s in the title of this post because I definitely didn't race; I walked the 5k along with some 65,000 others. you can see pictures of the massive crowds here, courtesy of Ben Minoff. In case you don't know, the specific cure that is being sought out is a cure for breast cancer.

I walked with Greta's Group organized in memory of B'nai El member Greta Forsman by her daughter Jennifer Houser. The beautiful weather gave us a wonderful opportunity to remember Greta, her courage in the face of cancer and the wonderful person that she was.

It was truly an amazing day. To stand at the intersection of Olive and Jefferson and to see nothing but a seas of people stretching out to the east and west seemingly without end was an amazing sight to see. But even more inspiring were all of the individual tributes. As I waited at a pre-arranged intersection to meet my group, I saw so many different tributes, both "in celebration of" and in memory of. It was such a diverse crowd; people of every race, religious background and social/economic class were represented. All of them with at least one thing in common: a desire to defeat this terrible disease.

I know also that everyone has a story, from the group of African Americans all wearing the t-shirt of the same woman, to the young man in a racing wheelchair that simply had the words, "In Celebration of Mom" pinned to his back.

I know that my walking did little to actually find a cure for breast cancer, and my $25 registration did only a little. But I do hope that my presence, when taken as a part of the 65,000 people inspired a woman to fight even harder against the cancer, helped a family work through its grief, helped a survivor realize she is far from alone, or helped a research team know how many people stood behind their work and how important it was to every last one of the 65,000 people who came out to join the race for a cure.