Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night

Every year at this time the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has a fund raiser called Light the Night http://www.lightthenight.org/. I first participated in it last year the first year after my diagnosis of CLL Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.
Tonight (September 30) was the first of two walks that I am going to participate in this year. Few people decide to walk twice, but I wanted to walk in one close to home and one close to my church Christ Church Summit so that people in both parts of my life could walk with me. I set an initial goal of $3000.00 for each walk which I recently reduced to $1,000.00 for each walk. I will make this goal as I have reached the goal for the Colonial Park walk which was today and I am well on my way to making or exceeding the goal for Giralda Farms which is next Saturday.
Today the weather forecast was not good. The day dawned bright and sunny, but they said there would be scattered thunder showers tonight. I prayed to God to keep the rain away and she listened because although it drizzled it was not a down pour.
Initially I had two of my friend who were walking with me and also fund raising for me. Both of them had family problems tonight and were unable to walk but I hope that they raised the funds. I will not find out until next week. So I relied on my old standbys my "rent a kids". Three of my neighbors kids "volunteered" to walk with me and my new housemate Leslie. We had a good time. We arrived early so that we could turn in the money before the long lines. I had turned in most of my money at the LLS office on Wednesday so I only had a little money to turn in tonight. I was able to cut the line because one of the staff members remembered me from last year and took my envelope from me. Then we had to get the lighted balloons a white one for me as I am a survivor and red ones for the rest of the crew. We also had to pick up tee shirts and sweat shirts and of course food. The kids were interested in the food and also the play ground. Although they were 13, 12 and 11 they still wanted to play in the kid’s playground. As it started getting dark I wanted them closer to me.
The ceremony starts with introduction of the Team leader and the honored guest. This time the honored guest was a three year old who was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of one. His mother spoke for him and how he is constantly on chemo and bone marrow transplants. It made me cry to think of what this child had been through. Next the relatives of patients who did not make it were honored with a carnation to hold in honor of their loved one. Survivors (that's people with a blood disease like me) were asked to light their white balloons and hold them up high for the others to honor. Then the walk started. It was a very short walk to the Metlar's Lane entrance to Colonial Park and back. It lasts only about one half hour which was good because the drizzle became a steadier drizzle for a while and then it stopped. In fact after the walk was over I looked up at the sky and saw the moon. So God had listened to my prayer and held off the rain! It was an inspiring evening. The kids wondered why we were walking and how I had raised the money. I said we were walking in honor of those with a blood cancer and I had raised the money by asking everyone I knew. In fact money came in from people I didn't know they just happened to be on my e-mail list! I will continue to fund raise as I am walking again next week and I still have a lot more people on my e-mail list and address list to ask for funds.