7/1/2015 Relay for Life (I have the best co-workers)

Aleathia says:

June 19th the Relay for Life happened in my town.  The idea for a team started after taking my daughter to a committee meeting because her father was not available to take her.  I got to thinking about how I had not given back to the community...I had been selfish for a number of years covering my own wounds from grief.  My daughter's involvement sparked me to do something good.

I started a team for our hospital, Corning ER and Friends, in hopes that my co-workers would join me in the fight against cancer.  It has touched all of our lives in some way or another.  Recently I have lost a lot of family to cancer.  I have some family who has survived it, including myself, and some who may not.  Each journey is different.  Each struggle personal.

To raise money, I made eye pillows that were filled with rice and scented with Lavender, Peppermint, or Bergamot.  I was surprised at how well received it was in pre-sales (not so much at the event), but my co-workers really bought them up and I hope they provide some comfort in the end. I also had hand made journals for sale. Robin Cooper made beautiful tote bags that we raffled off and Vicki Knarr did chair massages at the event which was greatly received.  Melody Ginnan came and watched the sales table for part of the night.

My best girlfriend Marlene Greenall stuck it out all night with me.  She walked as much as she could and kept me going in the hours when I could have dropped on the ground and fell asleep.  I walked 17 miles in less than 24 hours and I hurt for a week afterwards, but nothing takes away that feeling that something good was done here.  My favorite and most humbling moment was when I had to walk the Survivor's lap.  People applauding that fact that I was still alive and inside I felt like maybe I didn't deserve that honor.  My struggle was more emotional than physical and after my surgery I did not need any kind of chemo or radiation, but there was a point where they told me I might not have children.  I was 27 years old.  It was devastating, but I thought, at least I will have my life.  As I made my way around the track, my daughter came up beside me and asked if she could walk with me because she was pretty glad I was still alive.  It was hard to hold back the tears of joy to be there with all of these people who had fought and won, to remember all of those people who didn't win.

I love that my co-workers came out to support the even, donated their money and their time. Thank you Kristen Heck, Melanie Vanzile, Vicki Knarr, Robin Cooper, Tammy Monahan, Andrea Champion, Stephanie Manning, Meloday Ginnan, Tina Losey, Marlene Greenall,and Mary Buth. We even had a few folks from Rural Metro show up to give their support.  Thanks Billy Sanford and Joe Hawkins!

Our team looked to raise $1,000 and we beat our goal at $1,100!!  Our event hoped to raise $85,000 and we blew it out of the water raising $106,000 making us the largest fundraiser in our region! Us..tiny little Corning, NY.  Great job to our community and to everyone that came out.  It was a blessed evening and I can't wait to do it again next year with a little more time to prepare.  Love you all.

5/14/2015 Sally Mann, Photographer

Aleathia says:

It is hard to believe that it has been 2 weeks since I last posted.  I haven't been slacking off and watching bad television, believe me when I say that sounds fun, but I have been busy.  This Relay for Life team has taken me over.  I have been making scented eye pillows with almost every free chance I have had.  The team is coming together and it is gearing up to be a great time.  If you feel like donating anything to help fight cancer you can do so here:  Corning ER and Friends.

One of my favorite uses for this vehicle called blogging is to share art.  It seems like there is an endless supply and if I were diligent I would still not see everything there is to see in this world.  I was driving to work the other day and on NPR Terri Gross was interviewing photographer Sally Mann.  At first I was not sure who she was though the name seemed familiar.

Sally Mann is best known for her collection of work called Family.  It was controversial at the time of its publishing and is still able to make some folks squirm today.  The collection is a series of nude photographs of her children and family.  I remember watching a documentary on her about this collection and Michael was with me.  He was appalled and likened it to child pornography.  He can be a bit over the top sometimes when it comes to such things, but I did have to admit it was disconcerting that she would display her children's naked bodies for everyone to see.  I understand it is art, but what about the children.  In this NPR interview she spoke about these pictures and stated that they were done with dignity and the children, now adults, are proud of the work they did in these photographs and were proud of it then.

You cannot, however, deny that Sally Mann is a gifted photographer who is in love with light and shadow and the craft that she has spent her life honing.  To me the artist is most successful when they can make you slightly uncomfortable because it is in this place, this personal discomfort, that one begins to think about themselves and their relationship to the art.  It allows for critical thinking pertaining to what is acceptable to the heart and what is not.

Sally Mann's work is not limited to her family and her other bodies of work deserve just as much, if not more, attention.  I was interested to hear that she has a collection called Body Farm.  I am currently watching a BBC program of the same name.  A body farm is a place where scientists leave corpses in various conditions and study their rate of decomposition for the purpose of forensics.  This is often how they can tell when a person died by identifying the conditions and insects found on the body.  If you are squeamish then this set of photos may not be for you.

Mann grew up in Virginia and her Southern roots show up in her collection called Southern Landscapes.  This collection has a special place in my heart as many of the photographs were taken in Georgia.  I had the pleasure/displeasure of living there in my 20's.  I lived in the ghetto and I walked everywhere or biked.  It gave me the opportunity to become one with the landscape which is slow and green and always ripe with oppression from both history and heat.

Lastly, the collection I would like to display is Sally Mann's Proud Flesh.  This series of photos was done to document her husband's struggle with muscular distrophy which increases over time.  In the interview on NPR she marked this as her favorite body of work and said that it was the most peaceful and wonderful shoot of her life.  She has been with her husband for over 40 years and she stated this opportunity to work with him was a beautiful spot in her marriage.  Her hope was to not show his weakness in these photographs but to document the progression of a disease there is no control over. She wanted to catch his strength of character.

If you would like to learn more about Sally Mann you can visit her website.  If you would like to hear the Fresh Air interview then you can listen here.

Thanks for sticking with my blog even during the long absences.  I hope there won't be too many more of those.

4/17/2015 Relay for Life Corning, NY 2015

Aleathia says:

Recently my daughter brought home her nomination packet for the National Junior Honor Society.  It is the first time that her school is participating in this type of society and as her mother I am so very proud of her.  In reading over the material she was a little nervous about the qualities she didn't have and was starting to get down on herself.  She is kind of shy and therefore doesn't have a lot of experience in the leadership department or the service department.

I found out that she and her father participated in Relay for Life last year....how did I not know about this?  It seems like my child has two different lives sometimes.  I feel a bit lost when I don't know about the girl that lives at her dad's three days a week.

Yesterday I had decided that I wanted to put together a team for Relay for Life.  In the last few years I have lost my grandmother, my aunt, and my cousin to cancer.  My boyfriend lost his grandmother to cancer.  My daughter lost her great aunt to cancer.  I have several friends who have battled cancer and won.  This is such a couragous thing.  In 2000, I had pre-cancer of the cervix.  I never considered it having cancer because I didn't have chemo or radiation.  I had a surgery and some follow up and did not have to do much more than that.  I don't feel like I battled anything other than that month before I had the surgery where I felt like my life was altered forever.

I work in the Emergency Room and I see my community battle cancer all the time.  Some are young, some are children, some are my co-workers, some are old.  With their battle comes the battle the family must go through as well.  Being in the healthcare field lends me to have that hope that someday, despite Big Pharma, we will find a cure for cancer....someway, somehow.

Last night there was a meeting for the volunteers (Chloe is helping with the Luminaries) and I attended because Chloe was there.  This group of people is so excited about this project.  They want to spread the word and have as much of the community attend as possible.  Cancer touches all corners of the city you live in whether you are rich or poor.  It's devastation feels the same across the line.  It was inspiring to hear all the great fund raising ideas and community outreach projects that people are thinking up.

After we left the meeting, Chloe and I were brainstorming the different things we could do.  She is going to set up a donation area for gently used clothing for abuse victims that will go to help patient't at the Corning Hospital ER.  Half of the monetary donations collected will go to Relay for Life.  I thought that I could put my fabric scraps to use by making Lavender and Rice Eye Sachets to help soothe tired eyes and tension headaches.  She was very excited and told me that she loves volunteering and that it makes her feel so much better about herself.  I never knew this about her because she keeps a lot to herself and isn't always expressive about what she loves and doesn't love.  It really made my heart happy.  She inspires me to be a better person.

So last night I made a post to my Facebook page to see if a few of my local nurses and friends would like to join the Corning ER and Friends Team.  I was shocked to find that within an hour I had 17 people on my team.  It really made my heart get all warm and fuzzy.  I live in a great community and work with fantastic people.

If you would like to visit my fundraising page and donate you can find it here:  Corning ER and Friends Team.

Thank you for your support.