“I Relay for my grandma who survived colon cancer four times and a family friend that beat the battle against breast cancer.

For me, “cancer” is a word of shock and sadness. But at the same time it can be a word of happiness. Starting with the shock and sadness definition, for me, it is pretty obvious why I give it those definitions. The word itself sends chills down your spine, it causes one’s heart to sink to their stomachs and most of all, it hits harder than a right hook from Mike Tyson.

I was young when I heard that my grandma had cancer, and I was unsure what it actually even meant, but I knew that it made my parents sad. It wasn’t until her fourth diagnoses that I actually knew what it meant, and let me tell you, it was wasn’t easy telling myself that my grandma had cancer, a lady that had never smoked a single puff or drank a single drink.

At that moment I knew that no matter who you are, cancer didn’t care and it would do anything to ruin you and take you away from family. By the willpower of my grandma she battled off cancer for the last time.

Happiness, a word that shouldn’t even be near the word cancer but it can bring happiness to a person, or a family for that matter. “You are cancer-free” or “You beat the battle against cancer” are a few of the sayings that brought the most joy to my life when I heard the doctor tell my grandma that she was, indeed, cancer-free.

I know that I am not the only one that has had joy brought to their life from hearing those words. For me, I want more people to have happiness from hearing the word cancer, I want cancer to be a word of joy and when it is a word of sadness I want it to be 100 percent sure that it will be, soon, a word of happiness.

That is why I Relay, to change the meaning of cancer, to make it a word of happiness and hope. Hope for victims and happiness for families.”

-Griffin Williams, Sophomore Computer Science major