Gear Up Week - A Walk for the Red Story

It’s almost September and there’s a certain crisp in the morning air that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. It’s my favorite time of year, honestly. The snow still feels far enough away to not be real. The heat and humidity is slowly starting to fade, but it still isn’t time for a sweater. The farmer’s field across from us has acres upon acres of pumpkins and little balls of orange are just beginning to emerge from all the green leaves. Occasionally, if you take a quick peek at the tree lines as you drive by, you may start to see a slight tinge of brown or yellow.

Our girls are gearing up for volleyball games and the first day of school. My husband is patiently waiting for pre-season football to turn into the real deal, and across the state of Michigan, firefighters and volunteers alike are starting to lace up their boots, stock up on supplies, and overload the public on information and updates for Walk for the Red 140. It is my absolute favorite way to give back to the community! Believe me when I say, no one could do this event quite like our fearless leader Joseph Warne and the rest of the Neighbors United team.

Beginning September 4th, a group of the most dedicated individuals I’ve ever met, some dressed in full turn out gear, have prepared year round to walk 140 miles across the state of Michigan, raising money and awareness for the families of firefighters who are battling or have lost their battle with cancer. Some of the participants are past recipients, and let me tell you, if you’re looking for a good cry, watching a grown man who at one point, didn’t think he would pull through treatment cross a 140-mile long finish line is…. unexplainable.

I, personally, have the easy job. Spread the word. Make the videos. Post on social media. Quite frankly, show up, get creative, edit your stuff, and report out. Yet, there was nothing that could have prepared me for when a grown man limping through a pain that he had been unprepared for, look at me and say, “I can’t quit. I told my kid’s I’d do my best.” Or when a 17 year old takes 4 days off from his teenage life and dedicate it to the man who’d mentored him, because he “wants to be a firefighter, when he grows up.” (By the way, that “kid,” he is a firefighter now.)

It would be difficult to pinpoint how this entire thing started. Technically, you could go back as far as 9/11. Little did any of us know the lingering repercussions while watching the TV in horror as the plane hit that second tower. Or, you could say, it was when the first falling tower covered an entire city with so much debris and ash, they literally had to dig their way out.

Could it have been that first diagnosis after? The first symptom? When the first hero, who had been afraid of dying but did it anyway, was now forced into fighting for his life again? Or was it with the passing of a single man about 20 years later and hundreds of miles away from the city who had literally rebuilt on ashes? For me, personally, it started on a Saturday in 2022.

It was crisp morning, but sunny. There was an almost anxious trembling in the crowd as we gathered to start the longest day of the walk. We were ready, almost jump starting, and suddenly, we were off. As soon as the bagpipes started playing I’d lost it. Doing my best to hold back tears, yet still crying in front of all those people I’d never even met before, I immediately started filming. It was a beautiful thing watching this tangible show of support from community. Traveling slowly through downtown Lansing, people began coming out of businesses to wave. There were children on bicycles applauding, signaling for the fire engines to honk. Homemade signs were being hoisted in the air, “#F Cancer!” Things became silent for me when I saw one of the soon to be recipients, side by side with his family, refusing to stop walking. A man who’s job was literally killing him, was refusing to quit. And how do you explain that to someone who’s never experienced it?

Suddenly, this becomes much more about the cause than it does a cure. These men and women aren’t looking to be saved. They are looking to have the opportunity to save others again. It’s about doing your research and learning why cancer is the number 1 leading cause of death for those in the firefighting profession. And if you think it doesn’t affect the rest of us, you are terribly, terribly, mistaken. It’s about learning that the greatest thing in life you can do is to give back to the people who give everything for the rest of us.

I am not naïve enough to think that there aren’t other great causes to donate your time or money to. There certainly are a ton, and believe me, this world needs all the help it can get. I am not even from a family of firefighters, though I have, like many others in this life, lost some of those that I have deeply loved to cancer.
It’s my hope that we all start becoming a little more sensitized again to the things that make this world a little harder.

Many times in life, I have flashed back to one thing my own hero, my father, said to me when I was facing a dilemma as a young adult . “Maybe it’s not about solving the problem, maybe it’s about making the fight a little easier for those who have to fight it.” I carry that thought with me through life, and I can only hope I encourage someone else to do the same.

Please consider following along on the journey. We hope to see you somewhere down the road.