It was the end of  a heavy week, and I felt smashed.  I would have touched base with Serena over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend… I miss you so much. We probably would have gone to see a movie, then ventured to the park with takeaway coffee. We would have giggled and talked about a myriad of things, completely unrelated.

Sunday, I went to a Biggest Morning Tea to raise funds for the Cancer Council. My friend’s home was awash with balloons, bobbing at the ceiling. Bright yellow, they represented those we have lost to cancer. Bright yellow, like sunshine and trilling canaries and everything hopeful. It was a solemn moment, writing messages and names onto the balloons.

Cancer may have threatened the lives of our loved ones, and taken some beautiful people away, but it can never steal the fight against this bastard of a disease. We will continue to fight you, smite you, sneer at you.

The event raised over a $1,000 and I know that as long as there are people willing to stand up to you, the battle shall one day be won. I once toured the Children’s Cancer Institute. I saw young researchers crouched over cramped desks in stuffy rooms without windows. They were working twelve-hour days, and their commitment was without end. One day you will be no more, but their names shall be written in the annals of time. When I hit the wall, overwhelmed by how many I love are seriously ill, flattened by grief over the loved ones lost, I think of these researchers. I think of a young cancer patient I know who was part of a trial and whose cancer has retreated rather than advanced. To know what is happening behind the scenes-to have seen it with your own eyes-is a wondrous thing.