Relay for Life/UNITED FOR HOPE/Big Success!!!!

To all of you who donated to Relay for Life/United for Hope, the group Ben is affiliated with, THANK YOU SO MUCH! He surpassed his pledge. It was great having time together, with the family for Easter yesterday. Ben like usual, is taking all in stride, with his joking and positive spin on life. AND, he is swigging his Odwalla carrot juice down, like his Health Nut, Hippie type ole Mom as asked! Smile! Today I got a card from Lloyd's oldest sister, Leslie, and thought, how nice. Then I opened it and out fell a generous check for Relay for Life in Ben's name, and I thought, OMGosh. It was not the amount. It was the caring. EVERY ten dollars even , was a blessing! And thank you so much. I cannot wait to walk the track at the old Troy football field across from Auburn High School next month and see all the booths, displays and luminaries they light at night in remembrance of both those who have lost their battles with cancer, and for those who are cancer survivors. Knowing my son like I do, he will likely be sitting in a lawn chair, since it will be just a few weeks after his surgery, cheering everyone on. And YES, we will be doing a luminary this year, with his name on it. As a cancer survivor! YAY!  He also likes to put a name on a luminary for his sweet Grandmother, Inez Gran who died from leukemia, and his favorite Aunt Judy (Dennis) and not to forget her daughter, my niece, Dannette Hughes. We have many family/friends on Facebook who have loved ones who could be included.

So on we go. Tomorrow Ben goes to the U of W to learn from an OT person how the recovery will go. He insists that he will be fine at home recovering, but once a mother, always a mother, lol, so there will be lots of homemade soups, trips to Auburn, and texting up a storm. We have received such strength and support from   so many people. Thank you! No one ever expects to sit in front of a doctor and hear the word, cancer. No one especially expects to hear it when they are in their thirties and active and healthy. But out of all things, come great lessons. As my girlfriend in California tells me, after her several surgeries and being a cancer survivor, it has been a HUGE blessing in disguise. Each day, she looks at life differently. With a greater acceptance and tolerance than she ever had before, and she's a GREAT person naturally. She says, in a flash, you look at those big things as not such big things anymore and  those wants as not so necessary for happiness. And she says, little things become wonderful, BIG things.  We will learn much through this. And one of the things is to keep enjoying the special little moments (always captured by me in Kodak moments, lol) and so I close with one of my favorite picture perfect snaps from last year. It was Ben's Birthday and we were at a restaurant at SouthCenter. Ben is with his lil sister (older, "big" sister Dee in reality, smile) We will be celebrating indeed again, Ben's birthday, and while he will be recovering, it will be a celebration we will do with gusto as usual. CHEERS!