Welcome to Georgia's Journey

Georgia Lily Lucas was born at home on October 6th, 2008 4:15am, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She was diagnosed with SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) on April 1, 2009.

On April 3rd Georgia was taken home, to be near her sisters and the rest of her family and friends. Nearly three weeks later, on April 21, 2009, she died peacefully -- in the loving arms of her mother and in the same room in which she was born.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Today Mike and I took the girls down to Assiniboine Park to cheer my mom over the finish line at Challenge for Life. It was a walk done with all proceeds going to Cancer Care Manitoba. My mom chose to walk the 20km in honour of my cousin Nicki who has been battling Hodgkins Lymphoma. She just celebrated her 21st birthday last month and we are all now hoping that the cancer is in remission. The four of us had a great time. The girls had their faces painted, played in the bouncer and took in a Fred Penner show.

Despite the walkers raising over 1.2 million dollars Assiniboine Park was very quiet. They had live performers on the stage starting at 11:00 and there was almost nobody around to watch. When we sat down to watch Fred there was only another dozen people sitting in the vicinity. There was a group of cheerleaders to greet the walkers as they started down Victory Road (the last half kilometre) but there was literally nobody at the actual finish line. One poor couple was about to keep on walking before I told them that they were done. They looked around kind of surprised and headed for one of the tents.

This had me wondering. Why weren't there more people around to cheer the brave walkers on and take in the free entertainment? Was is just a lack of advertising as someone suggested to me? I've been hearing it on the radio for the last couple of weeks myself. My mom finished the walk with two of her teammates and there was nobody there to greet them. In fact, most of the people that finished had nobody there greeting them. You'd think that all of the people that sponsored them and care about them must know something about it. Are we all just tired of the fundraising walks? It's pretty early in the season to be feeling tired in my opinion.

Or, have many of us decided that once we've donated "our money" we've done our duty and can now move on? I really hope that's not the reason. While money will buy us treatments and cures it's only people that will bring us hope. Regardless of the lack of people we had a nice day and were so proud "that Grandma was walking to help make somebody who is really sick get better." Love ya mom! You too Nicki!

Love to you all,

Kristen

PS No sign of JackBugsStanley the last couple of days! : )
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousJune 14, 2009 at 12:42 PM

    I came just to say hi and that I hoped you are having a good weekend, and it looks like you had some fun and some sun! I am glad that even though it wasn't busy at the walk that you were all there, had a good time, and showed your support of your mom and all the others giving their time and energy to raise money!
    "While money will buy us treatments and cures it's only people that will bring us hope"-too true Kristen, and I think all of us need a reminder of that some days. You, your family and little Georgia certainly taught us that and continue to do so-thanks!
    Love Em

    ReplyDelete

Comments will be reviewed before being published.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)