We are at home now, recuperating from a long, cold night at the track. In spite of the cold, we had a good night. We all ended up coming home for a couple of hours in the middle of the night - I brought the 3 littlest kids home around 11:00, and the others got home at 2:30. We woke up around 6:30 and got back in time to walk a final lap and then pack up our blankets, chairs and snacks.
Kol did an awesome job on his speech - he's such a performer. He would pause, smile, and look out at the audience whenever he thought they might laugh. It was so good to see. I saw a few tears in the audience during his speech, as well as laughs. I think that means it was a success. The video we took of the speech picked up most of the audio - there was some wind interference, but we can still hear Kol. The camera was pretty far away from Kol, though, and there are lots of heads in the way, but we can still see him - mostly. Maybe Kirk will put it up on YouTube next week sometime.
Carla Chabot (who did our family pictures earlier this year) was the official photographer for the event, and has put together a photo montage on Facebook. Here it is. There are a few shots of all of us - you can even see Annika in a couple of the pictures.
In many ways, it was an emotional evening for me. There were several luminaries with Kol's name on them which was overwhelming. I found that as I walked, memories from a year ago kept coming to mind; memories of Kol in the hospital, of conversations with Doctors, of hearing that Kol had a tumour, and that the tumour was cancerous. I also kept thinking about last year's relay, about how different things were this year as compared to last year. When Kirk and the girls signed up on the team, I had imagined hanging out at the track with them and taking in the program. So much changed after that. I remember the fear, shock and unbelief I felt when Kirk called to say he was bringing Birgitte to the ER. I was in Kol's room at the hospital - he still had the EVD in and was still in the noisy observation unit.
I'm headed to bed soon. I need to be up around 6:30 tomorrow, however, my mind is still racing, so I'm not ready for sleep yet. We need to be on site for the Spring Sprint by about 9:00. It sounds like CTV will be covering part of the event, so you might want to watch the news tomorrow.
Good night, sleep tight.
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