Chris MacDonald

In Memory - Florence

I'm walking for my mother Florence. She was diagnosed in the fall of 2018, with leukemia, with CML.

That was a bit of a shocker because she didn't have any other health concerns, it came out of the blue. She did treatment for the better part of a year and things weren’t working well. She was the one who initiated doing the Light The Night walk. She was going to participate and we were all going to do it, but she was in the hospital around that time. So my family and I walked for her on her behalf. Things didn't go well with the treatment. She ended up in the hospital after Christmas and didn't leave the hospital for any length of time after that, and then she passed away March 29th.

When we did the walk and finished at the Garrison Grounds, she was in Emergency that night.

It stirs up a lot of emotions - the lanterns and the designations, knowing who is carrying which colour. When they have everyone light their lantern, for someone who has passed away, for someone who is undergoing treatment, you see how many people are there and how many people are affected. My favourite part of doing the walk was looking at the hospital windows and seeing the people looking down from the cancer wards. You're thinking about all the people looking down on the procession. There’s also a spot along the route with the pictures of the doctors who work in oncology and then the posters and photographs of different people who passed away and the families gathered around those. The walk is a very emotional journey.