This past weekend I was apart of a Relay For Life team that helped raise money to help find a cure for cancer at Rider University. For any of you that do not know, Relay For Life is an event that helps to celebrate loved ones that have fought the battle of cancer, remember the lives of the ones we’ve lost, and fight the battle against cancer as one.

This is the first year that I was involved with Relay and it made me realize something that I didn’t before; cancer affects everyone. Everyone has either known someone with cancer or knows of someone that had cancer. There is a statistic that proves that in the year of 2012, 562,607 people have died due to cancer, which means 1,596 people died each day that year.

The American Cancer Society and Relay For Life are two great organizations that are trying to put and end to something that affects so many people. Knowing someone with cancer or someone that has passed away with cancer is something that is life changing. It makes you realize that life is something so precious, something that can be gone in the blink of an eye.

I know survivors of all different types of cancer, and others that did not survive the battle. It is extremely emotional and traumatic experience; something that no one deserves to go through.

Joseph B. Wirthlin stated that “the more often we see the things around us - even the beautiful and wonderful things –– the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the cloud –– even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less.” We must learn to not take each day we have with our loved ones for granted. Time is precious, we must not take anything or anyone for granted because in life it takes a lifetime to live, and only one day to die.