Lindsey McKenna stood underneath the tent on Saturday morning, but no one begrudged her that. Everyone else was silent, rapt, in the cold and the rain and the mud, but her story was much too much for anyone to notice the weather and it put to shame any fleeting discomforts.
Cancer infested Lindsey's brain when she was 15 years old, a malignant tumor for her family, too, not metastasizing neoplasms in their bodies, but anguish in their hearts. And so when Lindsey stood up, a BC freshman and a survivor, at the end of the Relay for Life this weekend in Cleveland Circle, her story of conquering the disease became the story of the people there to hear it. Four bouts with chemo, 28 radiation treatments, all the trappings of the disease that afflicts one in three Americans, and still she stood there, adorable, smiling.
Earlier, small white bags holding candles had ringed an ad hoc camp of tents, a crowd of people who know someone who has beaten cancer or has died of it. From six o'clock on Friday night until just before 11 on Saturday morning, people walked around the bags.The walkers, 800 or so, raised more than $82,000 and counting, money that goes to the American Cancer Society. In the first year the ACS has arranged for on-line donations, Cleveland Circle hosted the most successful on-line event in New England, number two nationwide.
Jay Wayshak has been organizing these things for five years. "This was by far the most enthusiastic, emotional, passionate one that I've helped put on," he says. "Yeah, it was amazing. Amazing."
More shameful than amazing is that our school said it couldn't take place here. Relay organizers asked BC if they could stage the relay on Shea Field. Our administration said, simply, "No," and anyone with a pulse gritted their teeth. Wayshak says he was "shocked."
Sadly, I'm not shocked as much as I am appalled. A callous and dollar-driven decision from BC administrators isn't anything new. Wayshak says that of 140 colleges whose students put on relays, we were the only school that didn't offer its campus to what you might understate as a worthy cause. The condition of Shea Field, an understandable concern given recent weather, wasn't a primary concern, according to Wayshak and UGBC Community Affairs officer Tom Millar. No, BC was worried about liability. This, despite the fact that ACS insures the event. They were worried about appearances. This, despite the fact that the relay came off without incident (though a few walkers fortified themselves with visits to a fortification-providing establishment across the street). "God forbid something happens at the relay and the next thing you know it's in the paper," scoffs Wayshak. They were worried about welcoming students from other schools onto campus. Kids from Northeastern, WPI, UNH, Emerson, UMass, and Harvard walked and raised money that might one day fund a cure. Imagine that. Fears about diversity at BC.
No, I'm not shocked, more saddened. Saddened that administrators couldn't be there to see Lindsey, who raised $1,490 to combat the disease that has made her life so much longer than her 19 years. "It's definitely a good feeling to say, 'Wow, I've been through this and here I am,' but at the same time you're sad for others," says Lindsey, who couldn't grasp why the Relay couldn't be on her campus. "I don't understand why they wouldn't let it be here. To raise money to fight cancer, such a bad disease, they could walk around my bedroom if they wanted. For such a good cause, I don't understand the downside."
There would have been no downside. Now there is, a missed opportunity for this proud school to do something good. How much more money could have been raised if the University had thrown its weight behind this event? Millar, for one, thinks BC's cooperation would have helped exponentially. That's why he plans to meet in September with administrators who should be embarrassed into agreeing instantly to offer full cooperation. Shea Field? All yours. Alumni Stadium? You got it. We'll cater it.
"Hopefully," he says, "we've proved something to the administration and we might be able to work something out a little closer to home next year."
I wish they'd been there and seen Kaitlyn Farley, freshman and little sister of Ryan Farley, who would be snatching his diploma in three weeks if cancer hadn't taken from us two years ago that brilliant, smiling, life-loving friend. Kaitlyn stood and spoke, too, radiant still, after all her sadness.
Once more, the very best of this school comes not from the top but the bottom, people like Lindsey and Kaitlyn, who have lived far more than they should have.
I wish they'd been there to hear Lindsey and gaze at what it means to rise up, instead of hold down. Not one of them was.
Their logic was there, though, and it was like the weather and it was there as it always is: cold, damp, and muddy. You needed to look at people like Lindsey and Kaitlyn to forget about that.
Because that is the only way to see past all the lousiness, all the small defeats that mar every day, all the tiny disappointments that add up to a sigh at bedtime; in seeing past that, in vision that's hopeful for the big things rather than wincing at the small things, that's how to keep the light from getting snuffed. To keep it live.
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