Celebration of Life
The word ‘cancer' is traditionally affiliated with suffering and loss, but on Friday night the word ‘cancer' was followed by courage, strength, defiance and life.
The annual Relay for Life, a nationwide event raising money for the American Cancer Society (ACS) and its battle to cure cancer, was held in Thompson Falls on Friday night and Saturday morning with the national theme, ‘Celebrating Birthdays.'
The word ‘cancer' is traditionally affiliated with suffering and loss, but on Friday night the word ‘cancer' was followed by courage, strength, defiance and life.
The annual Relay for Life, a nationwide event raising money for the American Cancer Society (ACS) and its battle to cure cancer, was held in Thompson Falls on Friday night and Saturday morning with the national theme, ‘Celebrating Birthdays.'
Residents from all over the county gathered to celebrate those who have survived the disease. Participants, with high energy and momentum, that stayed with them throughout the entire evening, walked in order to raise money for ACS as part of the Relay for Life challenge. While the event celebrated the lives of those who have beat the disease, it also commemorated those who lost the fight against cancer, giving participants even more of a reason to continue walking for a cure.
The celebration opened with a survivors walk around the Thompson Falls High School gym. Around 45 cancer survivors marched a lap to the claps and cheers of a packed gym. The survivors then met their caregivers, or those who were with them the most during their fight against cancer, for another celebratory lap around the gym.
For Margaret Smallwood, a Thompson Falls resident and breast cancer survivor, it was her husband Gary who met her for the second lap around the gym.
"I had the best rock in the world to fall back on, I couldn't have done it without Gary. He was there every minute, he was up when I slept," Smallwood said. "That's the one thing that bothers me about this, I got all this treatment and hugs and squeezes and there's the hubby out there in the waiting room scared to death and I hated that more than anything. It scares the people you love because they feel helpless."
Smallwood was diagnosed with breast cancer in January of 2008. After a slew of treatment, she was declared cancer free last summer, however, she has to go to the doctor every 90 days for blood work and take a specific medication for the next five years.
Smallwood considers herself lucky despite the diagnosis, as she never missed a day of work apart from treatment days. The entire experience made Smallwood angry and, most of all, "defiant."
"When they started saying ‘you are going to be sick' and ‘these things are going to happen to you,' I said ‘stop, no I'm not.' And we just fought," Smallwood said.
Smallwood, along with approximately 45 additional cancer survivors, were celebrated on Friday night.
This was the tenth year the Relay for Life event was brought to Sanders County by a group of women who used to travel all the way to Missoula to participate in the event. Karen Dwyer, Chair of this year's event, was one of the women who traveled to Missoula to participate in Relay for Life. Dwyer said they decided to bring the event to Sanders County so more local residents would also have a chance to participate without having to travel such a long distance.
"This has been an awesome team to work with. We had 26 people on our planning committee and the majority showed up for meetings every month," said Dwyer, commenting on the success of the event.
Although the evening was filled with high energy and excitement, the enitre crowd took a long moment of silence once the sun went down for the luminaria ceremony.
Over one hundred bags, each with the name of someone who has battled cancer written on it, both survivors and victims, filled the high school parking lot. Each bag contained a single candle to represent the life of a specific individual, who was diagnosed with the disease.
The candles were lit at 10 p.m. on Friday night and the crowd sat silently listening to the names listed off alphabetically.
The event concluded on Saturday morning as the many Relay for Life teams from around the county had at least one walker on the course throughout the entire night, walking for a cure and celebrating life.