A couple years ago I was terribly overweight and out of shape. On the path that I was on I won't have a long and healthy life. So I started walking with some friends. At first I couldn't get up a short hill, but each day with my friends encouragement I got stronger.
One friend Julie started training for last year's Avon Walk in Long Beach. I knew that I couldn't walk that far and didn't even try it. But this year when she asked me again, I was in. Honestly I decided to do the walk in order to get in and keep in shape. A health goal more than out of a sense of charity. I will do it again next year for the people I met this weekend.
From the opening ceremony and continuing through every step of 39 plus miles, I realized what the Avon Walk was really about. I lost my step-dad to cancer, but thankfully I haven't lost any friends or family to breast cancer, but cancer is cancer. And as one child told me on the route... "it sucks!" It is a challenge to walk 39 miles, but it is easy, truly easy, when you have a survivor and her family stand on the side of the road and cheer you on - sincerely thank you for walking. It is easy to walk 39 miles when the women in front of you is wearing a t-shirt that lists many, many friends and family that have have lives altered or ended short due to breast cancer.
My eyes filled with tears so many times this weekend. I didn't anticipate the crowds on the side of the road, or the stories I would hear from fellow walkers. It is an experience that I will cherish and hope to do again.
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