Every year towards the end of May, there are hundreds of walks across the country to raise money and awareness for CF. This weekend, on Saturday May 19th, the Cincinnati Chapter of the CF Foundation is hosting the walk at Sawyer Point. For as long as I can remember, these weekends have been some of my favorite.
During CF walk weekends, Lyss would always joke about how she was famous, and by extension, so was I (on a serious note, Alyssa knew a lot of people so she definitely seemed famous sometimes), based on how many people would attend in support of our team, 65 LaRosas.
Rather than enjoying these weekends because they bring so much attention to CF, I actually think I enjoy them in spite of them focusing on CF. Or maybe it's less that it's about CF and it feels like it's the only weekend of the year that I allow myself to recognize how much Alyssa and I have dealt with over our lives and it feels like a weekend where I allow us to be celebrated.
I enjoy being able to spend some time with my worlds clashing; my friends and family all in the same area and celebrating afterward. It's so much fun to see everybody interacting and taking the time to come together for a bigger purpose in pursuit of a better world for people with CF, and if I'm being honest, for people to show us how much they care about Alyssa and I.
For obvious reasons, I feel anxious about this weekend. Lyss was a social media savant and was probably responsible for the majority of our fundraising every single year. Though this weekend is supposed to be for CF, to me, this weekend is not about that at all; to me, it's about my sister. I want to celebrate her life and I want to celebrate how instrumental she was in spreading so much awareness. I want to honor and remember her because I miss her so much and the world keeps spinning without her, but my world is eking along.
I'm so grateful for how much support I've had over the last two months and I'm looking forward to that coming together this weekend in the form of dozens of friends and family being there at the walk. I have a little surprise for everybody and I'm excited to show everybody.
There is still time to sign up to walk with us and donate (you'll have to copy & paste the link into your browser because I don't have an embed link, sorry):
Also, special shout-out to my coworker Cindy for buying a shirt and rocking it with me last week!
TL