Relay for Life at Anaheim Hills on May 5th 2012 - Luminaria Speech in honor of Nook

To honor Nook's memory on the first year of him no longer being with us physically, I decided to get involved with the Relay for Life in Anaheim Hills. It definitely wasn't as much as I would have liked to - but I helped in whatever way I could. As you know, Relay for Life is a special event where everyone walks for 24 hours in support of fundraising for the American Cancer Society. You can read more at www.relayforlife.org

There's this really special event called the Luminaria at the Relay that happens at night where candles light up the whole track and speakers share their personal stories of a loved one's journey and battle against their diagnosis. I was asked by the Luminaria organizers if I could speak about Nook. I said ok not knowing what exactly I was going to speak about. With a few days left to the Relay countdown date, the Luminaria organizers asked me if I had my speech ready - I said No. We started talking about it and the story of his journey took shape. I had some ideas in my head and I put pen down to paper. Here's a link to the Luminaria speech that my friend recorded on his iPhone.
(Note: It's all dark, you can't see me, but you can hear my voice - the famous Santa Ana winds can be heard whooshing in the background). But I was told by several people in the audience that towards the end of the speech, they saw two red balloons fly into the sky....no one released them or touched them - they were tethered down till then, but mysteriously came loose to fly high in the sky...I just like to think it was Nook smiling down upon us again and comforting me....however, as I was winding up my speech, I could see from the corner of my eye, a graceful white bird clearly against the dark night sky....wait...a graceful white bird....why doesn't that surprise me? Again - one of Nook's only wishes when we sat at the beach and he saw birds in the sky - he always wished he was a bird flying high above the land, effortlessly floating in the wide blue sky on a beautiful sunny clear So Cal day...that was him...a presence again telling us it was going to be ok...belief...that's all i can hang onto at this time, taking one day at a time!

http://youtu.be/eqsHN7VU5DA