Those little reminders....

Every so often, we get a poignant reminder of exactly why we walk. In the past two days, it happened twice. And with a big fundraiser scheduled tonight, the timing was almost unbelievable.

First up: Home Depot
Stef & Kraig stopped at Home Depot to pick up canvas belt  thingy-ma-bobs for our fundraiser tonight ... something to put our raffle money in, instead of fanny packs. They got up to the registers, and were flagged over to an empty one by a cashier.

The cashier asked if they were doing a fundraiser (buying six of these things must be a dead giveaway!). Stef explained that we were doing a fundraiser for the 3-Day for the Cure, a walk for breast cancer. The woman then told Stef that her sister recently died of breast cancer, leaving behind a 16-year-old daughter, who is now living with her 16-year-old cousin and uncle. And oh, by the way, that 16-year-old cousin's mom died of breast cancer too.

And today, we met Jacqueline.

Stef, Kraig and I did a 10-mile training walk today. There's a five-mile loop right around the neighborhood, but we needed to get in a little more to make it an even 10 miles. So we walked through the neighborhood a little. We got to the corner of my street and Stef says, "eh, that's good." Nah. I said we could probably get the full 10 miles in, if we went around the corner and down the next street. We're slogging along (that last mile is a beast) when we passed an older woman who was gardening.

She saw the three of us walking, wearing our bright pink shirts. She smiled and said, "Cancer walk?" We smiled and Stef said we were training for the 3-Day for the Cure. We walked past her a little, and she said, "I was just diagnosed with breast cancer this week."

We put the brakes on. Seriously? We just randomly walked down a street, and came across a woman who was just diagnosed with breast cancer. The amazing part was her attitude. She got a little teary when she started telling us, but she was so confident. "I'm going to beat this," she said. "I'm not going to let it kill me. I'll die of a heart attack instead."

We'll try to keep walking by Jacqueline's house, to see how she's doing. We may never see her again, but she'll be in our thoughts and prayers as we're training, and as we're walking. She's a fighter. I don't know if she'll win her fight. But I know without a doubt, that she is the reason we are walking: So someone's grandma doesn't have to hear those words, "you have breast cancer."