Someone is Waiting

This coming weekend, Team in Traning athletes from Richmond, all across Virginia, and from all over the United States and Canada will head to San Diego, California to run or walk 13.1 or 26.2 miles, and to Fletcher, North Carolina, and Lake Tahoe, California / Nevada to cycle 100 miles. All of them are racing for a cure. In deep gratitude, I dedicate this to them, their coaches, mentors, and the LLS staff that supports them with such dedication. In particular, I dedicate it to my seven mentees running and walking in San Diego: Beth, Lauren, Lelia, Lisa, Nancy, Stephanie, and Stephie, and to Nicole - my mentee last year who came back this year to cycle 100 miles in Tahoe.

"Someone is Waiting"

Someone is waiting, but it’s not looking great
For their cancer does not yet have a cure
They tremble a bit as they ponder their fate
As they hope and they pray and endure.

Someone is running, or walking quite fast,
‘Neath a California sun, so brilliant and hot
After months of hard work their event’s nearly past
And they’re giving it all that they got

Some mother’s watching her sweet, young child die
There’s no cure in time for her daughter
All she can do is hold her and cry
In despair from the pain cancer brought her

Somebody’s climbing, deftly shifting the gears
They ascend, viewing Tahoe’s forests and lakes
For 100 miles, they have conquered their fears
And they found that they have what it takes.

Some researcher is observing the minutes tick by
Because science must be patient and slow
But every ten minutes one more person will die -
And their research has reached a plateau

Some athlete is peddling beneath a sky of bright blue
Past Carolina’s mountains and pastoral fields
The money they raised might just find one more clue
For a cure as cancer’s dark secrets it yields

Someone has donated, inspired by your grit
And their dollars join millions like a river
Because you kept going, refusing to quit,
More cures scientists will deliver

Someone is surviving, and to you they give thanks
Just as future survivors will do
To their list of heroes you’ve now joined the ranks
For commitment and seeing things through

Art Ritter
May 28, 2010