Guest Blog: Relay for Life by Teach

Last Friday night the Moonwalkers embarked on a mission to raise a butt-load of money for the American Cancer Society. And we did it. Even through the blood (one of my friends lost a toenail!), sweat (Dog Walker smells pretty bad at events like these), and tears (for all the ones who have to deal with this terrible disease).

My best friend and I were co-captains of the Moonwalkers team. Dog Walker and Drama Queen were also on our team and they were right in the thick of all our fundraising. Earlier this month we had a huge car wash and bake sale that brought in a couple hundred dollars, we also went door-to-door to all of our wonderfully generous neighbors. At Relay we had a silent auction in which our team contributed 15 entries.  I want to thank my mom and Twelve Makes a Dozen for donating two baskets to our team! Thanks, Mom!  Drama Queen also dressed up as a clown (fresh from Sport’s birthday party) and she tied balloon animals at the event and brought in a whopping $6 for her efforts! The whole family came over and supported us by buying concessions, bidding on baskets, and walking around the track. We relayed until we were exhausted; I only got about 10 minutes of sleep.

Relay for Life is an amazing program set up by the American Cancer Society to help the community get involved with raising money for cancer research. The theme is:

Celebrate.
Remember.
Fight back.

Click here to donate to our team.

At Relay we have three different ceremonies.  The opening ceremony is for all those survivors who have fought and continue to fight cancer. This year I got to attend with my Grandpa. Last summer he discovered that he had prostate cancer and he had to have radiation treatments. Right now he is cancer-free and we hope he will stay that way for a long time. I also have a friend named Abby who has thyroid cancer. She has had a couple of surgeries, but she is also doing well. She had her first surgery when she was only 12. So Grandpa and Abby and all the other survivors take the first lap around the track. Then after that, friends, families, and teammates all walk around the track until the end of the Relay. This shows how we won’t sleep until we find a cure.

When it starts to get dark, we have the Luminaria ceremony. Since we are on a football field, we fill white paper sacks with sand and little candles, then we place them in the bleachers on either side of the field. On one side we write the word HOPE and on the other side we write the word CURE with these bags. Then we put the bags all the way around the track to light our way for the rest of the night. When we finally finish the Relay, we are exhausted and ready to collapse, but our fight back ceremony reminds us to fight against cancer by wearing sunscreen, receiving mammograms, and eating healthy. They also announce the winners of the silent auction and they tell us how much money we collectively raised for cancer. When we are finally able to go home and rest, we have smiles on our faces because we know we have supported a worthy cause. When all was said and done, this year our team brought in $2,241.93.

The girl in the purple survivor shirt is my friend, Abby.

I was on the committee and also a a team captain. People ask me all the time why I Relay. I Relay for all those who have lost a loved one. There are many people in my life who have been affected by cancer.  I Relay to rid the world of cancer so that when I am a mother I never had to watch my kids suffer from this terrible disease.  I Relay for the past, present, and future.  I love this cause! I pray that one day the world will be cancer-free.

Teach

Teach

I have eight wonderful and amazing daughters, in fact, Baby Doll finally broke through with her first tooth yesterday! I found it when I went after the piece of paper she was eating. She’s very proud of herself. The kids thought it was so cool I caught them feeding her full pasta shells for dinner. (I put a stop to that in a hurry…). But this post is actually about daughter number four.

Teach is turning 20 today. She has a unique way of looking at life. Her take on it is that she is entering her third decade (not getting out of her teens). She was born in 1991 on a warm spring day (I’ll tell you her birth story another time) with a sunny disposition. She was the girl who always got the citizenship award for being nice to everyone. She and the Drama Queen were the best of friends when they were little. They played on the same soccer teams and the same Jr. Jazz teams (I wrote a story about that once, remember?).

First Grade

As they got a little older, they headed in slightly different directions. Teach started spinning flags for the Marching Band. She spent a year in the Drama Club, but she was better suited to FCCLA. She loved working with kids and it was about that time that she decided she wanted to be a preschool teacher. She taught in her high school preschool for two years and became an officer in FCCLA. She was a super-over-achiever even though she didn’t really want to be. Her senior year was almost impossible, but she pulled it off somehow. Besides being an FCCLA officer, the Colorguard Captain, and the Sterling Scholar for the FACS department, she managed to earn her Girl Scout Gold Award and finish her Associates Degree! That gave her mostly a free ride for her final two years of schooling at any university in Utah.

She applied for 27 scholarships and received several choices. As of this moment, she has actually saved nearly $4000.00 because she chose to live mostly at home while attending school. She was notified just a few days ago that they were renewing her scholarship for next year even though all of her coursework is finished. Now she won’t have to pay for fall semester while she does her student teaching. Yes, she did accomplish that goal and she is almost a real elementary school teacher.

She is extremely goal-oriented, but also a known procrastinator. She is kind and unselfish with her time, talents, and resources. She is a committee member for the Relay for Life group. She has been volunteering with that group for about five years now. To donate click here. She also earned an AmeriCorps scholarship for all of her service work. She got a Cricut (paper cutting machine similar to diecuts) for Christmas a couple of years ago and she actually cried because she was so happy! Last night she stayed up until almost 3:00 am making cards for Prima Donna’s birthday party.

You all know the Dog Walker is Autistic and she has always been very protective and helpful with him. She humors him when he wants to volunteer in his elementary school cluster, and she will spend hours assisting him with homework or whatever he wants to do. Her mode of transportation is a cute little blue Beetle that gives her no end of grief. Our mechanic says it has a gremlin in it…She is my personal shopper…oh, did I mention that she also held down a job while she has been doing all this other stuff? She works at our local grocery store (which I love because I get a discount!) and I am constantly asking her to bring home milk, bread, bananas, whatever. She doesn’t complain and I’m sure she sometimes conveniently loses some of the receipts before I can reimburse her.

She is one of my favorite texting pals and now we are also blogging buddies. (Check out her button!) She and Curly are the best of friends and she has taught him way more than I have. She is one of my bestest friends and closest confidantes. I love her to pieces and appreciate her more than she will ever know. Happy birthday, Teach.

Government Contracts and Radio Contacts

When I was pregnant with number three, I went to work as a technical writer for a small defense contractor. It was a good job with good benefits and security. My sweetie went to work full time for the company he was working for so we finally were pulling in a decent income. Unfortunately, we had gotten ourselves under a pile of debt with school and cars and other stupid purchases that we shouldn’t have made. That meant we were both going to have to work for a good long time. I was 24 years old. Life was good but hard. 

When ends didn’t meet, I took on a part time teaching job. When they still didn’t meet, we started selling Tupperware on the side. Life became entirely too crazy then! I was gone nearly every night of the week except Sundays. I hardly ever saw my kids or my husband. I had some friends from work who were very supportive. One of those friends was a girl named Nancy. I guess I shouldn’t call her a girl, she was five years older than me, but she didn’t act like it. She was a single mom with a son just a few years older than Bossy. Even though she had a rather sad life, you would never have known it. She was always happy and helpful. She was the Document Control Librarian so we got to spend a lot of time together. She never thought a task was beneath her. 

She made countless copies for me and burned thousands of holes so that we could duplicate our vast library of government documents. We both liked the same radio station and kept it running constantly in our offices. One day they announced a birthday contest. If the day pulled out happened to be your birthday and you called in you could win $500.00! Nancy was just sure that one of our birthdays would be called out so we made a pact. If either one of us heard the other person’s birthday, we would quick call the station and then holler out to the other person and put them on the line. 

So I was working along one day when suddenly Nancy’s birthday was announced. I picked up the phone, hollered her name, and was surprised when the call rang through. My fingers started shaking, this was it! "Nancy!" I yelled. Her office was just around the corner from mine, but her dark head never appeared at the door. The DJ answered with the station’s call letters. "My birthday is January 30^th!" I blurted, then covered the receiver with my hand. "Nancy!" I called again urgently. She never came. I guess the DJ didn’t believe me or maybe it was standard protocol, but he asked me what year I was born, when I graduated high school…a whole list of questions that I couldn’t answer. When he finally determined that I was not giving him the truth, he hung up.

 I jumped out of my chair and burst into Nancy’s office. "Didn’t you hear me?" I stormed. "You could have just won the $500.00!" She was so calm. "Let’s call them back and explain everything," she suggested. I paced back and forth while she made the call. When she finally replaced the phone in the receiver, she had a smile on her face. "Did they say you could get the money?" I demanded. "No," she replied, "but they were nice, oh, and they are not going to call the police." That was Nancy. Nancy passed away from colon cancer on St. Patrick’s Day. I heard she was happy and smiling right to the end. She was 51 years old. Rest in Peace my friend.

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