Today we are here to celebrate a day of survival. But we are
also here to recognize a day that many did not survive. I am
referring to all of the survivors out here who have faced
the breast cancer dragon and squelched his fire. I am
referring to those we honor who have lost the battle, one of
them was my best friend, Kay. I am referring to those who
lost their lives on 9/11 three years ago. Today we are
celebrating and at the same time we are remembering.
As you can see, during our
lifetimes, we are given many lemons. Our country was given a
big bag of lemons in the way of terrorists on 9/ll but we
were not defeated, we were saddened but we are fighting
back. In the lives of our survivors who are present, lemons
were given to them also. They fought back and just look at
the many smiling faces and pink shirts in front of this
stage today. Our country and our survivors have taken those
lemons and we have made lemonade.
Today, there is a "young"
woman in the survivor group who has I am sure had a lot of
lemons thrown at her in her lifetime but I have never seen
her frown. Mrs. Stella Whitecotton, would you please come up
on stage so I can introduce you to the crowd.
Mrs. Stella is a very long
time survivor of breast cancer. In fact, she told me one day
that she is not really sure how long it has been. You see,
Mrs. Stella is 97 years old and is a survivor of at least 27
years. She is also a survivor of colon cancer. Mrs. Stella
is the mother of one son and has several grandchildren. When
I was diagnosed with breast cancer, Mrs. Stella told me,
"Doris, you will be all right, I had breast cancer too."
Since that day, she has been a role model of survival for
me. Today she is representing us as our New Balance Survivor
Representative. Just look at the nice outfit she is wearing
compliments of New Balance. Please join me in giving Mrs.
Stella a big round of applause for what she has done. Now
let??™s go out and see how much lemonade we can make out of
those lemons that we have been given. At this time, Lisa
McCollom will sing a special song just for you, Mrs. Stella.
?© Doris B. Fandal
September 5, 2004
This was written for the presentation I made at our
race on 9/11/04 to our New Balance Survivor representative
for the Race, Mrs. Whitecotton. |
