My reason to relay is my mom, it's my grandmother and my friend, my best friend's mom and my best friend's future. It's for each time I get to hear my mom sing Happy Birthday or tell me to clean my apartment. It's for my future and for yours. It's for every adventure big or small that someone gets to have because they're still here.In my memoir, Bald in the Land of Big Hair
, I talked a lot about Jerusha, who was five when I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and profoundly effected by that experience. (Yes, that's her on the book trailer!)Because we couldn't afford childcare after kindergarten, she attended many chemo sessions with me. When I started getting seriously sick, I wanted to protect her, so I'd lock the bathroom door when I had to throw up. She'd stand out there patiently knocking, then impatiently knocking, then kicking the door, yelling "Joni Rodgers, you stop that!" And when I couldn't stop, she'd sit on the floor and cry.
I finally opened the door. She came in, held a cold cloth to my forehead, and sang to me all the little songs I'd been singing her to sleep with since she was a baby. When she was allowed to help, she no longer felt small and afraid. It's a lesson she's taken with her as a woman and as a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity in Cambodia, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, American Cancer Society, and in the cause of civil and human rights abuse. I'm incredibly proud of her. Tonight she'll be rallying her peeps as captain of Team Starbucks at Relay for Life at SHSU in Huntsville to benefit the American Cancer Society.
Please help me support Jerusha and the American Cancer Society! I'll send an autographed copy of BLBH as a thank you gift to the next 25 people who donate $25 or more! Go to the linked page, make a donation of $25 or more, and forward the receipt along with your shipping address to jonireaders{a}gmail.com.
GOFIGHTWIN TEAM STARBUCKS!
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