Welcome back to our twelfth consecutive year of Kayaking for Cancer!

I woke up this morning to a terrifying bit of news. Kevin wants me to write a little something for the web page…..what this trip means and why do I do it. Thinking of the young people that lost their fathers this past spring (Jenna, Steve and Chelsea) makes me think of a seven year old boy sitting with his father playing crazy eights. Suddenly he tells the boy to go and get a bowl from his mother because he feels sick. He does and his father appears to be throwing up something bright red. It is the last time the boy sees his father (cancerous ulcers). Over the next few years he loses a couple of uncles to lung cancer.

Then quite a few years later he meets and marries a wonderful woman. Fifteen years later he watched her lose her mother to that same dreadful disease, this after losing her favourite aunt a couple of years earlier. This year she lost her uncle who had been like a father to her, yes to cancer. Oh yes, that boy lost his hero, his favourite brother to cancer five years ago.

This left a void he thought would never be filled. Then four years ago he came to Our Lord Saviour Jesus Christ and met a man who looked a lot like his brother. They became very good friends and he learned a lot from him. This man was Pastor Donald Stanley Crisp. Ha passed away last Sunday August 12th. Last and not least he lost another good friend, a church elder and neighbour, a man of 92 who was diagnosed with, you got it, cancer last October. For nine months this man who had lost two wives welcomed anyone and everyone into his home and believe it or not comforted every one of them, always sending them off with a prayer for their well being. This man showed me the joy, the peace and contentment that come from only one place, Our Lord.

So I’m not really sure what the one reason is that I come out for. Pick one; they all seem like good ones to me. And there are also the fifty or so extremely wonderful people that come out each year to raise money to help fight this deadly beast. They have all come to be just like family to me and I look forward to seeing them every August. I will pray for each and every one of them and the families they represent, that they might know and have that “peace” that Our Heavenly Father promises to all who grieve.

Thank you to all you wonderful people that put your kayaks in the water for eight days every year. It gives me a small opportunity to honour a lot of good people by serving each of you. Thanks to all my wonderful friends on the ground crew and the ladies of the Rideau.

God bless you all.

Brent Dopson