Memories of a luminary
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
By: Helen Hanbidge

My granddad died last year, but I fight back by making sure I'll never forget him!

In the spring of 2008, my granddad was diagnosed with cancer. I didn't know anything about his specifics, just that he was very sick. That May, I participated in my first relay. I walked, and I cried, because I was scared of what might happen. But I still had hope, and I truly believed that my granddad would beat the cancer.
Then in June, after my exams, I sat down with my family, and learned that my granddad was terminal. He wasn't going into remission, and he wasn't going to get better. I was scared, and didn't know what to expect. But right up until the day he died, my granddad was himself. Sure he got tired more easily. And yeah, he lost weight and needed to be hooked up to a morphine pump. But he still made us work to beat him at dominoes, and he still watched soccer and hockey with us. That was how HE fought back. He wasn't going to let the cancer take away who he was.
Then he died, and soon after came my second relay. I was helping to organize it, and that was my first step in fighting back. At the event, I made a luminary, and wrote a message to Granddad. But instead of just leaving it there, I brought it home. It sits on my dresser, with the side that says Granddad pointing towards me. And every time I think of something, or something reminds me of Granddad, I write it on a slip of paper, and put it in the luminary bag. It's a good thing this year's Relay is coming up, because this bag is almost full!
Cancer may have taken my Granddad from me in the physical sense, but I'll never let it take away my memories of a truly special man. If cancer doesn't take away our thoughts and feelings, then it hasn't won.
My granddad may have died from cancer, but he never stopped fighting it. He wasn't that kind of guy. He survived World War II, he immigrated to a new country, and he was a peacekeeper for most of his life. It just wasn't in his nature not to fight. And I'd like to think that I inherited that from him. I'm now learning how to run a Relay for Life, so that no one else has to suffer. I'm also making sure that cancer doesn't completely take one of the most important people in my life.