Ribbons

I spent some time tonight looking over our ribbon boa. This is something that we started last year, on my first 3-Day walk. So many stories we heard throughout our training and fundraising... so many people whose worlds have been turned upside down by breast cancer.

We wanted to carry those people with us on our 60 mile trek, so we created this piece. It hung on our tent the first 2 days, and I wore it on Day 3. This year, it will travel all 60 miles with us, carried proudly by the members of Music City Spirit.

You'll notice there are 3 colors of ribbons:

- Pink Ribbons are for survivors.
- White Ribbons are for the angels we've lost.
- Yellow Ribbons are for the future. The important people in our lives whom we pray will never have to have any other ribbon.

I was looking over our boa tonight... studying the names. So many are people I don't even know. I wonder how their fight is going. I wonder who they left behind. I wonder if there are any pink ribbons that now, a year later, need to be replaced with white ones.

Then there are the names that I know. The white, the pink, the yellow. Especially the yellow. That's where my daughter's name is. And my daughter-in-law. And our four nieces.

And then there's a pink ribbon that I can't even believe is still there. It's on the boa intertwined with two white ones ~ one for her grandmother and one for her aunt.  It's the name of my friend, who was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, just days before her 23rd birthday.  She was given a diagnosis of ten weeks to live... 17 weeks ago.  She's hit brick wall after brick wall trying to find someone who knows something that will help her fight off this rare, aggressive form of breast cancer.  I've said goodbye to her more than once over the past 6 months as they've told us she was nearing the end.  

I've thought several times about how hard it was going to be to change out that ribbon.  I've thought about what a basket case I was going to be in Atlanta, crossing that finish line holding her white ribbon even though I know she'll have organized all the angels in Heaven into a gigantic cheering squad for us. 

But as we sit here, just 8 1/2 weeks away from our walk, her white counts are good.  Her tumors are somewhat stabilized.  And I truly believe that when I walk that last mile on October 23rd, she will be cheering me on so loudly on this side of Heaven that I'll be able to hear her all the way from Nashville. 

And I'll probably be crying... but I'll also be smiling as I look at her pink ribbon.  Miss Amazing redefines "Survivor."  I can't cure her cancer, bring back her loved ones, or erase her surgical scars.  But walk 60 miles?

I can do that.