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Friday night was the cancer luminaria ceremony in Canandaigua, N.Y. Normally the luminaria are a part of the Relay for Life event, the fundraiser in which people walk a track for 12 hours throughout the night, with the luminaria lining the track -- but the Relay this year happened to be on a night of torrential winds and steady drizzle. So instead, an evening was chosen to set up the luminaria at the Commons minipark in downtown Canandaigua.
(Observation: Setting out a thousand bags of sand, setting a thousand candles in same, and then lighting them all is harder than it sounds. Kind of an aerobic workout, with lots of stretching and bending.) (Clarification: I didn't do all thousand. Probably only a couple hundred.)
It's always affecting to see the many remembrances of people who have lost their battles with cancer, and commemorations of those who are battling it now or are in remission. And to hear people share stories about their friend or loved one as they come across their candle.
My own candle was for Becky, a second cousin of mine who died at 12 or 13. She would be in her early 30s now, I believe. I didn't know her well at all -- really only have met the various second cousins two or three times, due primarily to geography -- but the family as a whole felt her loss.
We'll meet again, and likely become better acquainted.
In other news, I successfully updated our paper's Web site this weekend, which removed a source of anxiety and irritation due to the colossal mess I'd made of it the previous weekend. Turns out that there was one small step I was doing wrong that throws the whole process out of whack, as is pretty much always the case in such things.
(Observation: Setting out a thousand bags of sand, setting a thousand candles in same, and then lighting them all is harder than it sounds. Kind of an aerobic workout, with lots of stretching and bending.) (Clarification: I didn't do all thousand. Probably only a couple hundred.)
It's always affecting to see the many remembrances of people who have lost their battles with cancer, and commemorations of those who are battling it now or are in remission. And to hear people share stories about their friend or loved one as they come across their candle.
My own candle was for Becky, a second cousin of mine who died at 12 or 13. She would be in her early 30s now, I believe. I didn't know her well at all -- really only have met the various second cousins two or three times, due primarily to geography -- but the family as a whole felt her loss.
We'll meet again, and likely become better acquainted.
In other news, I successfully updated our paper's Web site this weekend, which removed a source of anxiety and irritation due to the colossal mess I'd made of it the previous weekend. Turns out that there was one small step I was doing wrong that throws the whole process out of whack, as is pretty much always the case in such things.
