Marcy is a two-time cancer survivor and is a member of the Christian Breast Cancer Support Group that meets the third Thursday every month at the Southern Shores home of Jan Wilson.  She’s a Reach to Recovery volunteer for Hyde and Dare Counties and an Ambassador for the Dare County American Cancer Society. The Support Group has a Dare County ACS Relay for Life team this year! See RELAY FOR LIFE 2006 for more information. Marcy Brenner Keynote Address 2000 Dare County Relay for Life The Whalehead Club Corolla, NC Take a moment to look around you at this beautiful place … and take a deep breath. Every person here has been touched by cancer in some way. Yet, it’s not cancer that brings us together today. We are not brought here by an urge to buy machines; or a desire to fund laboratories and research. We’re not here because we are eager to do battle. And we’re not joined by a mutual desire to fight. We are not inspired by cancer to make a contribution to the American Cancer Society. We write a check or volunteer our time as a way to express our love and desire to be a member of a community that cares for, and helps, one another. It is LOVE that has called us here. The Relay for Life is not about raising money. It’s about the community. This … is about love! As you look around at those wearing purple sashes, it’s easy to see that this event is about surviving. It’s about living, giving and surrendering to love. It’s about a path that those of us with purple ribbons have walked. Every lap taken around this path can represent the journey that we all have taken to be here today. I walked this track for the first time as one who gave what I could to someone with cancer. Then, it was my mother, Charlotte Brenner. The very next year, I returned as someone with cancer. It may sound strange, but for me, cancer brought a gift. The gift of a profound question – How do I want to live? Every day, as I answer this question, I become more alive. The psalmist wrote: “So teach us to number our days that we may attain a heart of wisdom.” A cancer diagnosis may bring a great deal of loss -- loss of health, loss of freedom and the loss of parts of the body. The way we once looked and felt, and our role in our community, are all changed and threatened. We lose the sense that we are in control of our life. And most frightening of all, that we may lose life itself. These losses are deep and disorienting. I have suffered such loss, yet I am grateful for the wake-up call to life I have been given. If I was offered a deal to go back in time and live my life without cancer, and all I would have to give up was the insights, experience and purpose that have come to me as a result, I don’t think I’d make that bargain. Those of us who wear this purple badge of courage know what it’s like to hear the words YOU HAVE CANCER. Like a trap door in the doctor’s office that opens with a roar, we were dropped into a basement and the door was slammed shut. We were alone in the darkness. We descended into the fear and isolation of the reality of illness and the prospect of death. All priorities shifted. Dr. Jean Bolen wrote a book about life-threatening illness and describes it as a time of crisis for the body as well as the soul. She defined the Chinese pictograph for crisis as being comprised of the symbols for danger and opportunity. She says that during this kind of crisis, when death and disability come close, questions about the meaning of life are raised and the bonds of relationships are tested. As members of a community, we play together, work together, meet and talk with one another. All of these activities are typical expressions of life. Suddenly, with a cancer diagnosis, we were in a basement and walled off from our community and our normal relationships. We were stricken and our life was threatened. We were unsure if we would ever again be a part of our community. A cancer diagnosis eclipses everyday troubles and complaints. It is bigger than we can cope with alone and our life depends on finding the way through it. We experienced how terrifyingly alone we had become. Even surrounded by family and friends and with the deepest of faith, we still found ourselves alone in this basement. In a way and to a depth we never knew, we had to admit we needed help. It is in this frightening and solitary place, in the midst of crisis, that we have the opportunity to connect with pure Spirit. Most people have never been to the basement, and they are choosing which Spirits are shaping their lives without the raw motivation to face the fearsome insights that come with a life-threatening illness. This basement is like the Biblical story of the desert, where Jesus went and faced the temptation of evil. In this type of isolation, if we allow negative Spirits such as anger and fear to consume us, we are in danger of succumbing to despair. It is the positive Spirits of love and hope that can give the help needed to get out of the basement and into the light of life. That is why it’s so precious that helpers come down into the basement and do not leave us alone with fear. They bring Goodness to that vulnerable place and make important choices about which Spirits will be called to come and do their work. We are often too overwhelmed or sick to make these choices for ourselves. Those who amplify fear are harmful, while those who reach us with love and care are helpful. They bring not more darkness and death, but light and life. The community gathered here had the opportunity to help us out of the basement and they did. There was little light or information down there and you were our hand in the darkness. You came down into the basement and sat with us. Fear may have called to you, but you turned your attention to us instead. You helped us find ways to cope. Instead of making us more alone by denying fear’s presence, you faced it with us. You knew that death was real and did not tell us it was foolish to be afraid of the dark. You held our hand and loved us through. You listened to us, nourished us and sat in silence with us. You shared your love and your health. You loaned us strength and hope. You did not abandon us in our time of need. We have earned these purple ribbons. We have gone down into the basement and we have come back up into the life of the living.

Survivors, as you walk the first lap around the track to open this year’s Relay, remember the hands that reached out to you, those who sat with you in the terror of that basement.This lap is symbolic of life. Now that we are out of the basement, we can extend a hand of gratitude to those who helped us when we were in the dark. Human suffering has dignity and value when it yields experience and strength that can help others. Hearts are filled and made well by the chance to give and to share. Take the hand of the person who helped you save your life. As the community that we are, let’s take this lap, this life, to choose to walk together with the positive Spirits of love, gratitude, compassion and truth. Let the Relay for Life 2000 begin!