Hope.
That’s a word that has always resonated deep inside of me. The one word whose meaning constantly prevents me from giving up after seeing all the bad things that still happen in our world. The one word which allows my mind to drift away thinking of possibilities, of utopic scenarios, of happy people in a perfect society. The one word that makes me want to fight towards those unreasonable, yet extremely charming dreams and daydreams.

From the moment we arrived in Cass Park for the CRC Walkathon/5K at October 13th, I immediately saw people’s excitement. From the conversations to the encouragement plaques to the cheering to the performances along the way, I’m only able to describe the general feeling of the place with the same word that means so much to me: hope. A hope not unreasonable, nor related to dream-only scenarios, but rather very concrete and very specific in the fight against cancer. A hope that shows me the kind of amazing things can be done by just gathering individual hopes in a big, beautiful wad. Imagine all the possible shapes such a wad can take, and the good it can do.

From the beginning of the walk, I felt almost unworthy of being in such an environment. Unworthy of the smiles and encouragement and kind words. Aside being there to support the Walkathon itself, what had I done, until that point in my life, to support the fight against cancer? I felt like I needed to do more, whatever that even meant at that point in time (i.e. during the walk). If I was walking, then I’d walk faster! (I know: that’s a rather dumb/weird reasoning. But it’s my mind, it’s weird, so hang in there for a couple more phrases!). A friend also wanted to do it, so we separated ourselves from the group and did it.

Did that change my feeling of unworthiness? No. I never expected it to.

Overall, all I did was to be there to support the cause. And I want to do more. I want to be a part of this kind of massive wad as it changes shape and does good in different ways and different places, and I want to feel like I deserve to be there.
I guess these are my main takes from the Walkathon. Besides a fun and joyful experience supporting a great cause, the certainty of a desire to keep helping people and supporting and fighting for causes like CRC’s battle against cancer. And a lesson on what wads can do 🙂

Will I ever feel worthy of the kind words I’ve received during the Walkathon? Only future can can tell, so, for now, I guess I can only hope.