survivor

This July 24-26, I will participate for the second time in the Breast Cancer 3 Day, an event in which people walk 60 miles in a 3 day period to raise money to end breast cancer. There are 15 such events nationwide, and this year, Boston kicks of the season.

Since losing my mother to breast cancer, I have met so many people whose lives are indelibly altered by loss when their loved one did not survive and survivors who continue to battle on. I did the 3 Day last year as a walker, and this year I will be on Bike Safety Crew. So as I plan for Rwanda, I am also training to be bike-ready for 10-14 hour days "in the saddle" (cylcists lingo for on the bike) - serving the walkers, who are worthy of all my time, tender tuchis, and temporary tenting because what they do will remarkably add days to a life that is precious.

I love survivors. The survivor status at The 3 Day is a significant honor. Survivors, the ones who have had cancer, walk alongside us and enter the closing ceremonies last, like battle-scarred warriors, which they are. It is a moment of choking back tears or letting them flow when we stop to cheer them and recognize that the fight is still going on, even as we enjoy the achievement of the walk we have just completed together.

I am a Survivor fan - the show, I mean. I am one of those addicted souls who rush to be home for 8pm on Thursdays when the group of reality-tv characters show up for their 39 day ordeal of athletic and mental endeavors, and I love to root for a winner just as much as the next guy. But I know that surviving desolate conditions in Tocantins, Brazil is nothing compared to surviving cancer or genocide. And, anything risky you take on by choice is pretty much off the table when a discussion of life and death arises for real. Is perching on a pole for over an hour without falling off really surviving? And yet I watch.

Survivors of the genocide which killed 90% of the city of Kibuye, Rwanda, where I will be living, are not all immediately obvious just at a glance. I'm told that when we meet them, they will not be identified as such, but we will know from their age who was orphaned, because those kids are about 15-25 now. We will know, if we see people with less than all of their appendages, that they lived through unspeakable events. Are they people of honor? Lauded in society? What is remarkable is that Rwandans feel very ashamed of their history - folks who have nothing to be sorry for, are humiliated by the actions of the Hutu power movement which scarred their legacy. Some do not look you in the eye because of this - because you are foreign and visiting, and what must you think of them. This is a different kind of survivor, to be sure.

Am I a survivor? I am certainly not a war hero or a cancer patient (yet). I am not mamed by the machete. Yet, I fight for life. We all do. What are you surviving?