Well…I survived Relay for Life. In case you were not aware, 12 hours is a really long time. How about a recap, shall we?
We arrived in the MU quad at 5:30 pm and met up with our team. We were surrounded by the social fraternities and sororities. Dad once told me about frats having a lot of couches. It is no lie. They literally carried in full sized couches and set up camp. One of them even brought in a TV and a generator because nothing says saving lives like a PS4. Kappa Kappa Gamma was there with their cute sign "Kappas for a Kure". It's C-U-R-E you idiots. With a C. Sorry. A pet peeve of mine. Here is where it gets good though. We rented tents from the rec center on campus. Easy enough. I've set up a tent before. But there's a catch…you cannot stake the tent because apparently all of the power lines for the entire university are underground in the quad. One stake through a power line and all of campus would go without power. Alrighty then. This tent was a little more challenging than any tent we own, but no big deal because we can just read the instructions. Alas (earwax), there are none. Finally 4 of us manage to get this tent up and it is time for the opening ceremony and the survivor lap. I knew the survivor lap would be hard, and it was, but I also realized that so many people that are important in my life are survivors too. In fact, a girl on our team who is a member of the club we partnered with is a survivor and she took the lap. She's my age. That was humbling.
DJ Kevin was in charge of music for the night as we started our laps. He was horrible. He kept changing songs right in the middle and trying to remix things. It was not pleasant. About a mile in, it was time for the frozen t-shirt contest. Our group opted to watch rather than participate, which was a good choice. Hilarity ensued. After a few more laps, some of us returned to the tent and met up with the group that had gone to the store. Nothing says walking all night like a dozen doughnuts, 4 boxes of cookies, a gallon of sweet tea, 3 bags of sour patch kids, a super sized bag of gummy bears, two boxes of Capri Suns, and three bags of chips. At some point in there, there was the human pyramid contest which had to be redone after the gymnastics team and Sigma Chi both thought they had won. I don't know who won the rematch and I frankly don't care.
At some point, our group ended up back in the tent. This was about 10 pm. We opted to play Heads Up. For those of you that don't know, it's an app made popular by Ellen. One person holds up the phone to their forehead with the screen facing out. A word or phrase pops up on the screen and the others must describe it and hope the person holding the phone guesses right. This particular app had an adult category. Many laughs were had by all. My favorite of the night? The word was HBO. My clue was Game of Thrones network, key word network. What we all got back as a guess was penis. Ok then.
As the night wore on, we had some deserters. By the time 1 am rolled around, there were but six of us left and it was time for the luminaria ceremony. Here it is time for my rant. You've been warned.
The luminaria ceremony, for those of you not familiar with Relay for Life, is the ceremony to honor those who have lost their battle. Lit luminarias lined the quad, some dedicated, some blank. The emcee for the night got up and gave her spiel. And then they brought in a speaker to tell his story. This young gentleman was 20 years old when he was diagnosed with leukemia. He endured chemo and radiation and was eventually saved by a a bone marrow transplant. Then his brother, who is a current OSU student gave his spiel about why he has become a part of the Be the Match campaign and how he works to register bone marrow donors on campus. Great. It's great that he is doing that. It's great that they registered 61 new donors yesterday. It's great that almost everyone in our group was inspired to sign up. But you don't bring in a survivor to speak at the luminaria ceremony. People are there to mourn those that have been lost to this horrendous disease. Many people just sat down by their luminarias and cried. Many people in the crowd cried. People who have lost someone, people like me, don't want to hear your survival story. Tell it at the beginning. Tell it at the closing ceremony. Don't tell it when people are remembering those that aren't survivors. If you want a speaker, bring in someone who has lost someone. Or don't speak at all and just reflect.
Rant over. At some point around 2 am, I fell asleep in the middle of a rousing round of musical chairs. It was too late and too cold for that. I woke up at some point to find everyone else sleeping too. Then at 4 am, there was the announcement that breakfast was served. Not many takers since not many people eat breakfast at 4 am. And then 5 am rolled around at they roused us from our sleep for the closing ceremony. We, as a school, raised $40, 700 for cancer research and finding a cure. Whoo hoo! We packed up the tent, packed up our stuff and went home to sleep.
Six of us made it all twelve hours. We slept in a tent, on the ground. We got up at 5 am. We took a stand. The big question at Relay for Life is "why do you relay?" I relay for my mom. I relay for people like my mom who fought hard and just couldn't win. I relay for people like me who lost their world to cancer. I relay to end this. What started out as a "hell no" ended up being a profound and, frankly, very enjoyable way to spend 12 hours. And I got to spend it with a great group of people. If you would still like to donate, donations are accepted until the end of May.
Until next time,
Karina
P.S. Another small rant/pet peeve. Cancer encompasses more than just breast cancer. Nothing against breast cancer. I know many women who have fought and won and who have fought and lost and we absolutely need to find a cure. But that is not the only cancer out there. Just be aware.
P.P.S. I am currently the reigning Capri Sun chugging champion. Twice. If anyone is up to the challenge, come and find me. We will have a grand old time.
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