Amongst other things… it was exhilarating, overwhelming, deeply moving and totally exhausting.
Over the weekend I dressed myself up in pink paraphernalia and like a freshly oxygenated blood cell, started moving along a carefully planned route so that I would come across more pink, freshly oxygenated blood cells at our local bus stop. I was excited to note that our team of pink cells were met by joyous smiles of other pink cells, all loading on to the bus as cars driving by tooted and honked… yes full of more of these same very crimson cells. We were collectively becoming blood.
And on this Sunday morning, the blood was flowing through the capillaries of Brisbane city from all angles far and wide and eventually converging into the very heart… The Mata Hospital… where the arteries ran pink and swathes of men, women and children swarmed rhythmically off public transport and headed toward the start line.
Here we pooled and eddied amongst each other as we condensed this compassionate soup in preparation for the start and so I took the time to notice the tags people were wearing on their shirts stating, “I am doing this for…” and hand scrawled women’s names and ‘Mum’s’ and photos of women so lovingly attached.
You see, the very thing that inspired us to come together on this very heart felt day has a harsh reality of epic endurance and pain, hardship, and potential for loss of the lives of loved ones. Women, daughters, mothers, sisters, friends… Breast Cancer. That is what we fund raised for and why we were teaming together in a sea of more than 23,000 other oxygenated blood cells who were open hearted and raw with empathy and compassion for the women who have had to walk that path.
Being amongst that crowd felt raw, deeply connected, heart felt and real. I wanted to reach out to my neighbours and include them into any conversation and I did just that. It felt like we were moving together and unyieldingly powerful in doing so. Just, I guess, Like blood.
The start gun eventually went off and we glugged and flowed along the roads that are normally car infested and unremarkable to drive along, but we got to stop and enjoy the view from the Kangaroo cliffs and celebrate the opportunity to walk across the Epic Story Bridge and through the city streets in out pink swathe.
Our little team of blood cells had a wonderful time as we received the support of volunteers along the way in the shape of cups of water and enthusiastic call outs… We eventually made it across the finish line and cheered ourselves for our success and sense of accomplishment.
Collectively, the Brisbane blood flow raised something like 1.7 million dollars to support women undergoing breast cancer treatment in Brisbane and that was only part of what the best bits were. The sense of connection, depth, compassion, and community was deeply moving and so I feel somewhat moved to inspire you to participate in something like this as I am all the better off for it!
I hope you reach out and get involved in something bigger than yourself.
