Thank You

I'm rarely at a loss of inspiration - I was blessed with a mother that inspired me to live each day.  Every day my mom serves as that same inspiration, because today I live not only for me, but also for her.  Last year after my mom's death, I decided to finally sign up for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  Through the incredible generosity of my family and friends, we were able to raise close to $3,000.  Yesterday, I was invited to a Pink Honor Roll celebration in honor of the top 121 fundraisers for 2009.  The #1 place raised over $113,000 and while I didn't raise anywhere close to that, I'm extremely proud of what we raised in such a short amount of time.  Of course K's dreidel game winnings, doubled by her company was a large chunk of our efforts, but the importance is the goal - as the NYC president, Dara said yesterday, "Our goal is to put ourselves out of business."  My personal goal is to surpass this fund-raising amount in 2010, double our team size and to help save another mother, daughter, aunt, sister, friend, so that another 25 year old girl doesn't have to lose her mom and her best friend to this terrible disease.

I started this post by talking about inspiration and I met a truly inspiring woman, yesterday aboard this cruise around NYC.  JP is a breast cancer survivor and her story hit home because she is a mom of two and was diagnosed around the same time as my mom.  We spoke of different treatments and she kept comparing me to her own kids.  Last year was also her first race.  She decided to learn to run, yes run, in honor of both her 60th birthday and her 15 year survival.  I can't run, but now I am suddenly feeling inspired - IZ may not be the only one from CUREiously PINK running in September.  She was having trouble taking pics and of course I don't take my camera on a trip such as this and I took some pics with my berry that I instantly emailed to her.  Today, of course I googled and found much more interesting facts about her and to quote from her featured surivor story on Komen:

• If I had not had breast cancer, I venture to say I would not have had the courage to take swimming lessons in a chilly lake in springtime to get over my fear of water.
• If I had not had breast cancer, I doubt that I would have had the fortitude to go to law school and become at attorney at the age of 52, which involved commuting three hours round trip to school each day of classes as a single mom.
• If I had not had breast cancer, I do not believe I would have wanted to mark the milestone of my 60th birthday, which is also the 15th year of my survivorship, by learning to run this past winter and spring so I could run in the Susan G. Komen New York City Race for the Cure in September.

This Sunday marks the year anniversary and this cruise really couldn't have come at a better time. 

To my dearest mom, who always found the strength to smile, to get up and to live each day!!! I love you, today, yesterday, everyday.