Saturday, April 27, 2013

Just Cause!

I think it is important for each of us to have a cause.  It doesn't matter what it is as long as it helps someone.  My cause (or should I say one of them) is Relay for Life or the fight against cancer.  

Cancer is the disease caused by abnormal and unchecked division of cells within the body.  When most people think of cancer they think of chemotherapy and radiation.  Hair falling out or the children on television for St. Jude's.

I've held someone's hand as they gave their last breath to the fight against cancer.  I hugged a family member who watched as their loved ones passed away, ravaged by its malignancy.  And though I'm not a survivor of cancer (having never had it) I know survivors and I know those who didn't win the battle.  I think when you're on the front lines of something it changes a part of you.  So, why cancer?  Haven't I held the hands of a stroke victim whose brain injury was so bad they didn't make it?  Haven't I sighed in defeat when a heart attack took yet another person from this world?  I've done both and much more, but the slow and insidious death cancer caused those I've been privileged to give End of Life care to was heartbreaking.  

So, do you have to choose cancer or the Relay for Life as your cause?  Nope!  There are so many causes out there to have, and you don't have to pick just one.  Another cause of mine is literacy.  Reading for me is more than just pleasure.  It's knowledge.  It's thought provoking.  And I don't want you to just be able to read, but to understand what you've read.  To be able to write-maybe not a novel-but a letter or a paragraph.  Words have so much power if we only use it...

So, what cause are you going to choose, or which cause do you already have?

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