What Relay Means to Me by Kristina Burditt

I first got involved in Relay For Life in 2000. I didn’t know much about it at the time. My cousins had lost both their parents to cancer, and they asked us to join them in raising money for a cure. That was all I needed to hear. I was in. Our family was going to fight back against something that had hurt us, and that was reason enough.

Over the past 26 years, my Relay “Why” has evolved — and so has its meaning in my life.

I watched my Daddy lose six of his seven siblings before cancer eventually took him from us. But during those years, I also saw how far cancer treatments had come. The advances our family witnessed were incredible. Cancer, to me, has always been a dirty word — at one time, one of the scariest words I could hear. But Relay For Life gave me a way to fight back. It gave me the power to help create the change I wanted… no, needed to see in the world.

To truly understand my “Why,” I have to explain something. When my dad was first diagnosed, we were told he had six months, maybe a year. But because we had been involved in Relay For Life for so long — because we had seen so much progress and learned so much — we knew there had to be other options. So we searched. And we found a doctor who believed there was a treatment that could give our dad six more years.

And it did.

Six more years of life, memories, laughter, and love. And I honestly believe that had it not been for our involvement in Relay, we might not have been as informed. We might not have felt empowered enough to take control of the situation.

When I was young and heard someone had cancer, I automatically thought we would lose them. But when my mother and my husband were diagnosed, I didn’t feel that way. I knew this was something they could fight — and win.

Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back. Those words hold deep meaning for me.

I Celebrate the strides we’ve made in cancer research and the survivors who have benefited from it. I Remember all the lives lost and how heartbreaking it truly is. And Relay gives me the power to Fight Back. I don’t have to just be scared. I can stand up to cancer and let it know I’m not backing down. It does not get to win.

I — we — have the power to fund the research, support the warriors fighting this disease, and fuel the mission.

Relay For Life is not just an event to me. It is a way to focus my energy and battle a force that has devastated my family and so many others. I truly believe we will win this fight and make the future safer for generations to come.

Think of the memories we are helping create. Think of the heartbreaks we are preventing.

That is what Relay means to me.