Cancer. A lot of us are afraid of the word. It is a word that most associate with death. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines cancer as a serious disease caused by cells that are not normal and that can spread to one or many parts of the body. Cancer doesn’t have to be bad. We are getting closer each and every day to ending cancer. I am a volunteer for the American Cancer Society. I participate in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. Relay for Life is non-profit, driven by local communities to fight back against cancer. Together we celebrate the ones who have survived, remember the ones that we lost, and fight alongside the ones who are still fighting.
In 1994 my father lost his battle to cancer. I was only five and my family was distraught. Cancer had taken claim to another father, son, brother, uncle and a husband. Back in 1994 cancer treatment and screening were still at their early stages of development and many people where misdiagnosed. By the time the doctors figured out what it was, it was too late.
My parents migrated here from Portugal in 1987 in hopes of raising a child and being able to offer them a better life. After my father lost his battle, my mother was left alone to raise a child without knowing how to drive and how to speak the language. As I got older I saw the struggle my mother had to support herself and me. She had done everything she could to raise me. Cancer took more than father; it took my childhood.
My first Relay for Life was two years ago. I did not know what to expect. My friends mother had posted a donation link of her Facebook and I had commented what a great cause this was. She suggested that I join her team. So I did. The first time I met the team was at a fundraiser they were holding. When I arrived they all welcomed me with open arms. Hearing stories of why they volunteered, and sharing my own, solidified that people from all backgrounds can come together to make a difference.
Relay was all new to me. I didn’t know what to expect the day of the big event. Held on a football field, with each team having a campsite, it surely was overwhelming. Every team had theme. Ours that year was 80’s retro diner. The event is open to the public all day long, allowing teams to finish raising funds for the current relay year. 97% of all money raised is poured back into the community.
The Relay for Life experience would be a good topic for a memoir, except in this case I don;t think it ties very closely to the assignment: of writing about a personal experience tied to your sense of home. The part of this that *does* seem like a perfect topic to explore here is mostly in para. 3, about how your mother created a home for you in this new country, the immigrant experience story, of adjusting to a new home. Sometimes this story is also about how to preserve the tie to the “home” country (through language, food, culture, etc.) The line “my mother was left alone to raise a child without knowing how to drive and how to speak the language” is powerful, I think. I’d love to hear more about this woman, who seems heroic! Can you remember any specific times of her struggle and triumph? Let us see the house she created, and the challenges and progress she experienced. It may not have the drama of cancer, but it’s certainly a story worth telling!
The experience of losing your father at such a young age, and how that transformed your sense of home is also a possible topic/focus, though my sense is that this might be a bit more difficult to write about since you’d be focusing on what’s absent rather than what’s present. My husband’s mother died when he was three. Though I know that event profoundly affected his life, I think it would be difficult for him to write about since his memories are so hazy. What he *could* write about is the experience of being raised by the aunt who moved in and the way the rest of the extended family circled around to provide support, though not maybe with the close sort of attention a mother might have provided. Does that make any sense? If you’d like to do some radical revision here, feel free to pass another rough draft past me–I promise to get more speedy feedback!!