Portland, Oregon -- The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Race For The Cure 5K Co-Ed Walk officially begins at 9:30 a.m. With 38,000 participants, we are a sea of people in pink: survivors wearing pink hats and shirts; survivor family and friends wearing 12 inch pink square signs pinned to the back of their clothing to honor the memory of someone surviving breast cancer or someone lost to breast cancer.
Men, women and children crossing the Burnside Bridge span all six lanes. Each person is part of something bigger than the self and if the healing power of heaven can be pulled down to touch the earth we are collectively walking on, surely it is now. There are bagpipes and drumming as we walk. Cheering and bottled water. Breast cancer survivors wearing pink hats are given roses as they cross the finish line.
I was the only one wearing a pink hat on the shuttle bus ride back to the east side of Portland, when I am asked why I walk in the Race For The Cure.
“In gratitude, I walk for all the women who walked before me. Because of those women, I am still here.
In support, I walk for all the women who will walk after me, who do not know they will be walking in the race, who will be told this year or the next year they have breast cancer.
In hope for me, so when the day comes, if it does, I am told my cancer is back, maybe the walking done today will make a difference when a difference is needed.
But most of all, I walk for the little girl who walked in the race today, with the 12 inch pink square pinned to the back of her sweatshirt that read — In Memory Of … My Mom.”
During our conversation, rain began to stream down the bus windows, softly at first, then more intensely. The world weeps for the losses that come too soon and should not come at all for the loved and the loved ones and still the losses happen when all we do is not enough — not yet.
