You may remember that my mom decided to do the Relay for Life, in honor and in memory of my grandfather, Dick Silver. Before reading any further, click on the link above - or this one - and take a look at her page. If you haven't already made a donation, now is as good a time as any.
The relay was last night in Mansfield. The synagogue's team name was "Relay for חי" because the word חי (chai, pronounced with a gutteral H, not like the tea that Starbucks sells) means "life". Mom's team raised over $5000! But they could raise more....
Are you getting my hint? My mom won't ask anyone for money any more - she figures her two email requests were enough. So I figured I could do my part and ask the blogging community to step up and make small donations.
I rarely get excited that Shabbat starts so late, because I usually hate when it ends so late on Saturday night. But this weekend I was happy about it. It was my last Shabbat in Brighton for a few months (I leave for camp tomorrow) and I just wasn't done packing, cleaning, preparing, etc. so I really didn't want to spend Shabbat anywhere but my own apartment. That said, I also wanted to join my mom for part of the relay.....
LUCKILY...Shabbat didn't start until WAY late last night. I went to opening ceremonies, we walked the track and found Papa's luminary bag, stayed for part of the synagogue's services, and drove home = all before Shabbat! I should find things to do on Friday nights like this more often!
This is the bag that my mom made for Papa. The track was lined with bags. The entire inside circle was filled with bags, and about half the outside circle too. It was an overwhelming number of bags.
The stadium seats were filled with bags too. They were all the same and had a picture of a little kid on it. Can you tell their formation? It spells out HOPE.
While the point of the relay is to not have everyone walking at the same time, but to have someone from your team walking for 18 hours straight (18 = life), they started the relay by asking all the purple-shirted-survivors to walk a lap around the track.
It was an emotional event. For some people it was a freedom walk of sorts, a walk to represent their victory in the fight against cancer. For others, it was a sad memorial walk, remembering someone they love who lost the battle with cancer. I felt like the emotions were hard to balance. I wanted to applaud the people in purple shirts, but I was jealous that my grandfather wasn't one of them.
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