By Mike Rosen (as it appeared in the Del Webb Down Home publication May 18, 2012).

It was another Friday ritual for us at Del Webb, a time, Carol and I have lately reserved the evening for mellowing out instead of going out. I still work from home; Carol is a more typical Del Webb resident, retired and taking part in all that makes life special here: golf, women’s club, antique hunting, sewing, decorating, socializing, and giving me honey-do lists. 

This past Friday was, however, different. I just returned from my morning 20-20-20-workout class. As I park my car, I noticed this force of nature (aka Sidney Payne) bounding out of an SUV behind me in the driveway with two packages in hand.

 “Mike, I have your survivors shirts…have to run and deliver a bunch more.” 

Boom, gone. 

It was a startling reminder that Carol had committed us to participate in the Relay For Life Fundraiser honoring cancer victims and survivors at Charlie Daniels Park, Mount Juliet TN (our new home).

Both our Parents experienced and succumbed to cancer. Ours was diagnosed earlier enough so that we didn’t have to experience the extreme suffering and indignity that cancer can ravage upon the human body and spirit.

Along with marriage, raising kids, college, grandchildren, and charting our way through life’s waterways, the reality of cancer was a light that only blinded us when it was occasionally shined in our faces. 

Friday night would be such a time. We arrived at the park to see a sea of purple shirts—those who are supporters, others that are survivors, friends and strangers who would soon touch and bond with us in a way we have never experienced before. 

We quickly took up some real estate with our chairs and settled in, when we realized the little white bags at the edge of the large oval walking path would have the names of loved ones on them. They would also have a candle cradled in a wooden base, which would be lit in their memory after dark. 

We quickly walked the path and found our parents’ names and were taken aback with the love and memory of their lives and what they meant to us when we were woven together. 

The most disturbing memory for me was the ghost of my mother-In-law Lil’s face, which I saw whenever I looked and walked down into my basement office in our former Long Island NY home, after she passed. This is where we had set up an area for her to live and be cared for while she battled terminal breast cancer. 

When we finished walking the path, we were invited to sit and have dinner in a special tent set up for survivors where we were served by friends, neighbors and volunteers. The attention was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. 

After dinner, survivors were asked to walk the Circle Of Life Path. The skies were resting their light while the little white-bagged candle monuments illuminated the pathway for us. People gathered at the edge of the path and started to clap and cheer us on. I proceeded stoically holding my wife’s hand while holding back tears and embarrassment for this undeserved attention. 

Halfway around the path, just as we passed the little monument with my parents’ name on it, there stood a group of Junior Marines from Cumberland University. In front of them were four young public school students proudly wearing the same uniform, standing at rigid attention and saluting us as we passed. I’m not a war hero, I was never in the service, my heart was pumping while tears welled up in me…and I cried.

This was an affirmation of what we could be when we come together and honor our experience and elevate the human condition. 

The evening was filled with joy, meditation, remembrance, survivor stories, entertainment and several hardy souls who continued to walk The Relay for Life all through the night. 

Sidney Payne; thanks to your tenacious and over the top personality this event touched a lot of hearts and lives. Please accept my salute to you and the other volunteers who put this together, in my eyes you are a General amongst Privates. 

Author’s note: It’s almost nine years since that day and while most of us are still living in Del Webb, some have either moved on to nursing homes, are now living closer to children or have passed. The memory of those candles and how people from all walks of life, different religions, different parts of the country opened their hearts will always be one more light that is ignited by humanity.