Connection

My family put together a team for the UC Davis Relay for Life. We walked this past weekend. The Halperns for Hope (that's us!) was one of the top fundraising teams of the relay. In addition, we won a prize for having a team member from the farthest away (my cousin Sondra from Maine). We had three generations walking and ranged in age from 83 (okay, the 83-year-old more rolled than walked) to 15. For 24 hours (give or take), we talked, ate, walked, ate, laughed, cried and ate together (trail mix rocks!). We had several very memorable moments, including but not limited to, when I took off pushing my mother in her wheelchair for the special Survivors Lap and went in the wrong direction. It wasn't until my sister pointed out that the band was walking TOWARD us that I realized my mistake.

Mainly, however, we were together. I don't know of anything that gives my life more meaning than those connections. While I'm certain that there's some core to me that is immutable, much of me is defined by who I am to and with these people: mother, daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, lover, friend. Each one of those people has touched my life, changed me, enlightened me, loved me, been exasperated by me, been proud of me and I've done the same for them. It's like a giant web of connections with the vibrations from any one occurrence to any of us reverberating through the rest of us.

Or as my uncle would say, we're like a bunch of little piggies. Pull one of our tails and we'll all squeal.