By By MaryClaire Foster
After spending many recent weekends in town, I headed to my hometown this past weekend to see my family and friends and attend yet another event as a bridesmaid.
This is my sixth wedding to be in, and just recently I learned I would be in my seventh in August.
I’ve joked before about ending up like Katherine Heigel in “27 Dresses,” but it is scarily getting a little closer to the truth every few months.
I’ll be heading home again this next weekend to spend Easter with my family.
One of my favorite Easter memories is waking up to find huge, muddy rabbit footprints leading from the door to our Easter baskets on our new carpet. I wrote about the lengths my mother went to keep me believing in Santa Claus and my Christmas elf, Teetotally Terrific, and to my father’s dismay over dirtying up the new carpet, my mom spared no effort in making sure I believed in the Easter bunny.
I saw this same fervor for a child’s happiness this weekend when I went to my cousin’s two children’s birthday party.
Not only was there a moon bounce, but a real cotton candy machine.
Most importantly though, I got to see my extended family, something that does not happen quite as often these days.
It was especially nice to see my grandmother, who is probably my biggest supporter about my career. She proudly informed me that she could tell a definite difference in my work and that my skills had really improved.
I had to laugh though when she disappointedly told me my section of the paper, her favorite of course, had been left out of her paper, but I had forgotten to tell her it just was not being included that week.
Besides seeing my grandmother, I was grateful to see my Uncle Jay, who is currently battling cancer with all he’s got.
This made this week’s Lifestyles section especially poignant for me.
I hope the fundraising events for Relay not only bring awareness of the prevalence of cancer and what we can each do to protect ourselves, but to help us to remember the loved ones in our lives who have gone through it or are still going through it.
Like Deborah Camp said in the article, it’s not always completely apparent how Relay helps those around you, but just because it’s not something we see firsthand does not mean it’s not helping someone in the community, whether financially or mentally.
MaryClaire Foster is news editor for the Atmore Advance. She can be reached at (251) 368-2123 or via email at lifestyles@atmoreadvance.com