Please hold the hands of the person next to you.
And we ask you to remain silent and hold your applause.
As a group of breast cancer survivors, moves out from the stage.
These women surround an empty circle.
Inside it, spirit.
The spirit of all those lost to breast cancer.
A circle for the hundreds of thousands
Of American women alone lost to breast cancer.
Millions around the world.
A circle for all of the memories.
Of a time when there was life and conversation.
When they walked with us.
The young mother.
The grandmother.
All of the promise.
The beauty.
The laughter.
Our sisters.
Our friends.
It is a circle to hold all of the sorrow.
And a time for us to remember them.
With our thoughts.
With our tears.
The 3-Day is a place where you can let your tears fall.
Into the love that is all around you.
The women around the circle represent another spirit
The spirit of survival.
The spirit to keep living.
In the face of fear.
In the face of the unknown.
Chemotherapies and surgeries.
Side effects.
Changes.
Caught between cautious hope and fearful uncertainty.
The strength that it takes to walk through it all.
Through it all with dignity.
Today we remember spirit.
Within us and around us.
We connect with the sweet spirits of the departed
We honor the unstoppable spirit of the survivors
And we walk for both
Today we represent life gone by with life still miraculously here
Today we create a living breathing human monument
More beautiful than any cast in bronze or carved of granite
And our monument shouts to all who will hear
And even to those who won't:
We will never give up.
As long as we live, we will never give up.
|
