Survivors recall and share at Relay for Life

Chestnut Mountain - For the 20th year in Hall County and the fifth year at Road Atlanta, the annual Cancer Society Relay for Life began with the 'Survivor's Walk' Friday afternoon.

Survivors Chairperson Lynn Stepp estimated this year's total crowd at 20,000, with at least 400 cancer survivors and 107 relay teams.

"It's always been my hope that we could have from the beginning of the track to the end of the track full of survivors one year," she said. "That's what I keep coming for, to see that happen."

Lynn Stepp of Gainesville is a 20 year survivor; so is Jeff Farmer from Flowery Branch, who was on the first relay team when the event began at Gainesville State College in the early 1990's. He's been to every Relay for Life ever since.

"I'm still surviving," Farmer said. "It's a pilgrimage for me, it means a lot to me to see my fellow cancer survivors who I've known throughout the years but every year you meet new people."

At the big white Survivors Tent there was a reunion of the remaining members of the very first relay team.

"It was stormy and it didn't last very long at Gainesville College," recalled Becky Latty from Gainesville, also a first team member, who hesitated at first but is glad she attended.

Four out of five members of that team are survivors, one is deceased but those are good odds. Jeff Farmer feels his survival odds are good.

"I had a cancerous brain tumor," Farmer said. "With the type of tumor I had the survival rate is 18 to 24 months, so I think I beat the odds and now I'll be celebrating 20 years August the 10th."

"It's amazing to see this large group, it's amazing how it's grown every year, it's very comforting, it's wonderful, wonderful," Latty said, adding that surviving cancer makes you appreciate life. "Things that you think are important when it comes to your life, and if you're going to survive or not, material things do not mean a lot, family and friends are the most important."

That first year Relay for Life raised about $16,000, Stepp recalled. Organizers this year hope to raise a half million dollars for cancer research and patient support. Stepp said the relay this year would run until midnight, maybe 1 a.m. Saturday, instead of seven in the morning, for the first time. Next year the plan is to run the relay during the day, from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m.

"If you can just talk to people like us who have been there, and know where we've been and how we've been, we can share anything," Latty said.

So the people in purple T-shirts assembled and walked the Survivors Walk to inaugurate the Relay for Life, and this year I walked with them. I am just beginning my pilgrimage, inspired by those I met and talked with and who shared at the Survivor's Tent Friday afternoon.

I too have learned family and friends are the most important and that surviving colon cancer, at least so far, makes you appreciate life. It is amazing, it is comforting; it has been a struggle, and could be again, but it is wonderful.