Pan Can Walk for Jennie

Today was MY second annual PanCan Stride. It's hard to believe that it has been over a year since we lost Jennie. Jen W. arranged it again so we were on a team and we raised nearly $2000. We were a small team though. It was only us three teachers, Jen's daughter, Jennie's uncle, and Jeff.

I'm glad Jeff came with me. Ali came with me last year but she is still at school. I half expected Jeff to say no but he didn't hesitate saying he'd come. I think he thought at first it was a run (it wasn't~ though we both talked about how we thought if they made it a run they'd make more money- runners LOVE races!). I was decked out in purple but we realized that Jeff didn't have any. We're going to have to change that for next year.

It was a gray, gloomy day and I found my eyes leaking more than once. It just seems so cruel that she's not here. We used to text nearly every day and as I was saying to Jeff- it was a friendship that was kind of just the two of us. We talked VERY candidly but there was no one in "our group" so when she died, I felt very alone in that grief. 

Jeff was very supportive. He drove- parking was easy, and we soon found a food truck with tea. It was a bit chilly but once we started walking it was good. Just the two of us walked together because we wanted to go faster. Jeff was hoping to actually run a bit (forgot to mention when we were in ER he did a run/walk and shockingly wanted to do one again even though for days he talked about how sore he was).

They had something where you could sign who you were walking for. Pancreatic Cancer has a 13% survival rate and it still makes me mad that Jennie wasn't in the 13 since she was young and otherwise healthy. We thought she had beat it after her whipple but it came back. It seemed she knew. I hated it and didn't want to think about it.

The sea of purple was vast and there were more people than last year- which was good because they changed the location and I liked this one better. Last year, Ali and I walked with Nicole and Mitch and it was so hard to walk with everyone that we decided to not finish the mile loop and we went to breakfast instead.

Even some of the trees were purple!

It was nice being downtown again and we do need to come more often. We talked about the international relay I did and found it so cool that right across that river is Canada! We also walked by the Detroit Princess Ship where Z had his prom, and along the Riverwalk where we had our "Hooky Date" last year. After we finished the 5k, we went to Atwater which was super close, talked, watched a little soccer and had some food. We split a pretzel and a pizza (and the pizza was so good we didn't have leftovers! I had three slices myself! Needless to say- no dinner for us tonight!

I decided to have all the Dirty Blondes in a Flight.