Light the Night Walk

Shammond, Kayla and Steven accompanied me to the Fox Cities Stadium Light the Night Walk in Appleton on September 14.  Hundreds of people attended the fund raising walk for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  Our team called ourselves the "Washington Island Miracles."  We did no fund raising.  Just getting to the walk seemed to be enough this year.  Food, music and fireworks made for a lively celebration.  Each participant was given a lighted balloon to carry on the two-mile evening walk.  Red balloons were given to support people; families and friends of those with disease.  Yellow balloons were carried by participants who knew someone who died.  White balloons were handed to survivors.  I carried a white one.  I kept looking up and seeing the light in my balloon against the star-studded night sky.  There were only a few of us white balloons in the crowd.  I walked side ways and backward in the parade and greeted every person carrying a white balloon. Many of us cried and hung onto each other as our white balloon strings tangled in the evening breeze.  One little boy had on a t-shirt that read;  "You can't scare me.  I've beat cancer TWICE."   I did not hug the little kid. He marched on with his white balloon and "don't hold me back" attitude.