Remembering Why

I love the buzz of the MoonWalk night.

I love seeing my Walk the Walk  friends, many for the first time since last year (I loved it before you lot were my friends so you’re all a bonus!)

I love seeing walkers on the train, on buses and walking towards MoonWalk City.

I love the way the excitement builds as volunteers sign in at the volunteer tent.

I love the way the volunteers pull together and the “can do” attitude, I love the way we have a whinge about the things that aren’t quite right but then find a way round them and get on with it.

I love the atmosphere of MoonWalk City.

I love the misplaced confidence people have that I will know the answer to any question they have just cos I’m dressed in fetching dayglo orange.

I love the sight of the pink tent against the green of Hyde Park or Inverleith Gardens. This year I loved the sight of it against the iconic towers of Battersea Power Station, especially when those towers glowed pink in the night.

I love being out in a bra car.

I love standing on street corners clapping, exchanging banter and hugs.

I love talking to bemused tourists and revellers, and putting a pink collection pot under their noses when they express amazement and admiration for what’s happening on the streets of our capital city.

I love the sight of walkers streaming across the bridges and along the embankments of the city.

I love the sight of the quiet Thames as dawn breaks.

I love seeing the kindness being shown by marshals to those walkers who have been thwarted by the challenge.

I love the emotion at the finish line.

I love the pride I feel that my son, niece and good friends walked the walk this year.

But it becomes about the night, the event itself.

Last night, just a day after the fun of the Moonwalk, I heard that a lady I really admire is fighting breast cancer. She’s nobody special and yet she is very special. Like me she’s someone who’s found herself the single mum of a young son. She is a beautiful, gentle, kind soul who is doing her best to make a good life for her son, she’s trained to become an infant teacher and works hard to provide a secure home. This disease has stopped her in her tracks, prevented her from working and shaken her son’s security in every way.

I hate that.

It is a horrible reminder of why the MoonWalk exists. I will carry on volunteering for Walk the Walk, carry on helping my son with his fundraising, carry on signing up my family and friends to walk or volunteer. Not because I love it but because we have to carry on fighting this disease until it is beaten.

– Colette