Tents litter the football field at Gesling Stadium to offer refuge from what will be an all-night relay. An ’80s pop favorite blasts from the stadium’s sound system. The music spurs an impromptu dance party by the side of the track as speed walkers, their shoulders slumping a bit, complete their fiftieth-plus lap at the American Cancer Society Relay for Life.
Suddenly, the revelry stops and everyone vacates the track, except about a dozen smiling individuals, all wearing the same uniform—a purple shirt with the word Survivor on the back. As they complete their lap together, cheers rain down on them from hundreds of students, professors, and friends attending the walkathon to raise money for cancer.
This event is led by Robin Luo, a senior communication design major. She is the co-chair and just one of many student volunteers who put together the overnight relay that will raise more than $52,000. Luo believes that support shown by the 46 teams participating is as important as the donations.
She should know. She is wearing a purple shirt, too. A survivor of nasopharyngeal cancer, she was not sure she would ever return to Carnegie Mellon. She was diagnosed in spring 2006, which forced her to return home to San Francisco to receive chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Her friend, Scott Smith, a senior design student who started the Relay for Life at Carnegie Mellon, had no doubts. He promised her that he would have a purple T-shirt waiting for her when she returned.
Back in San Francisco, she underwent 33 days of radiation treatment that made her temporarily lose some of her hearing, hair, and ability to eat. On bad days, she would spend three hours trying to finish a meal. Luo did return to school with a new appreciation for things beside good grades—like beating her guy friends in a pizza-eating contest and joining other survivors in the relay, many three times her age.
After the survivor’s lap, the music returns, as do all of the all-night walkers. About two hours later, though, the stadium lights dim and, again, the music stops. The track is surrounded with candlelit bags, each with a name of someone who had to fight cancer. As the crowd walks a solemn lap, silently paying tribute, a student collapses next to a candlelit bag and starts to cry. Instantly, there is an arm over her shoulder, and then another, and another. Soon tears turn to smiles, and then laughter. There is no name written on the bag, only the scribbled words Laughter & Love.
—Sean Patrick Conboy (HS’08)
