There was a scenic stretch of Purple Trail that runs through Carrollton today, marking roughly the 30-mile point in the Susan G. Komen Dallas/Fort Worth 3-Day. It was here that I turned on my voice recorder, moseyed on up alongside dozens of walkers and asked them to give me one word to describe how they felt right then. Their answers were inspiring, funny, honest, touching and sometimes surprising.
By far, the most frequent answer was AWESOME, followed closely by GREAT, INSPIRED and MOTIVATED.
The walkers’ one-word responses, in word cloud from! (Created on Tagxedo.com)
At least a tenth of folks who answered couldn’t keep it to just one word (mostly because “Need to pee!” is three words), but the multi-word answers were wonderful too, including:
- “Good, good, good!” (he made sure I got all three)
- “Oh so pretty!”- said by a very handsome fella in a very frilly tutu
- “Not too bad.”
- “Pretty good.”
- “Excited to be around my breast friends!”
- “Can do.”
- “Loving this!”
- And yes, a few responses of, “I can’t say it…”
A few of the one-word answers prompted me to ask for more information:
Her: “Anxious.”
Me: “Why?”
Her: “To get to lunch!”
Him: “Good!”
Me: “Good is good.”
Him: “Today’s my mom’s birthday.”
Me: “Oh, that is good!”
Him: “Well, it would’ve been her birthday… ‘Mom’. That’s my one word.”
Her: “Stubborn.”
Me: “Stubborn?”
Her: “I just have to keep going!”
Her: “Desperate!”
Me: “Oh no! Desperate for what?”
Her: “Rewrapping my feet. But don’t say ‘desperate.’ Say ‘inspired’ instead!”
Her: “Lucky.”
Me: “Lucky why?”
Her: “That I can do this.”
Her: “I don’t know! So many conflicting emotions!”
Me: “So… ‘emotional’?”
Her: “HappySadAwesome.”
One guy seemed caught off guard by my question, then laughed and said, “Distracted! That’s the problem, I was staring off into space so I wouldn’t have to think about how I felt!”
Another man, without hesitation answered, “Grateful.” I asked, “Grateful for what?” He replied, “That Komen provided an opportunity to do something like this.” The woman he was walking with added, “Humbled.” A few moment later, the two walkers who were a few yards behind them asked what their answers were, and when I told them, they said, “They’re walking for their mom.”
Thanks for playing along, Dallas/Fort Worth walkers! There aren’t enough words in the book to describe how we feel about YOU!
Blessed
Lisa Cate
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I totally wanted to tell you “Defeated” (but instead I said awesome). Not long after you asked, I had a complete meltdown that I’d come all of the way to day 3 and didn’t know if I could make it one more step, let alone to the end. Then I remembered how hard my aunt fought until breast cancer finally won. I figured I could fight a few more miles. 🙂 Thank you for one of the most awesome experiences of my life!