World Cancer Day: A Personal Photo Collection

Today is World Cancer Day.

I cannot speak for the world.

I cannot speak for the 1,660,290 people in the United States who will be diagnosed with cancer this year.

I can only speak for myself and as a witness of my parents' cancer journeys.

And today, I choose not to speak. I choose to let a collection of family photos do the talking.

My mother was diagnosed in July 2012 with ovarian cancer. At that time my dad had been already fighting melanoma for 1 1/2 years.

That is where we begin, on a Relay for Life track in Minnesota, where Mom and Dad lit luminarias with our three names:

This is why I Relay.