Gratitude Monday: A lovely day for a walk

On this Cinco de Mayo Gratitude Monday, I am deeply grateful that hundreds of people turned out Saturday for the WalkMS event in Los Gatos, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars towards support services for MS sufferers and research for more effective therapies and, eventually, a cure.

It was a great crowd, including many repeat teams, outfitted in custom tee-shirts. It seemed to be personal to a lot of them.

This woman’s hat kind of tells the story—she was in a wheelchair, and each of the ribbons hanging from the hat represents a person. I counted at least 22.

There was also this pair: mother with MS, daughter born about a year after she was diagnosed. An act of faith; or at least of hope.

And this mother, with an “I have MS; that’s why I walk” bib, and her son, wearing the “I walk for” bib. 

This was just a walk, you know, a very social affair. Although, this being the Valley they call Silicon, there were those who ran the 5K route. I caught up with a fellow who’d set a good pace and he and I walked most of the course together, having quite a nice chat.

The volunteers were really great—at least half of them looked like high school kids, bagging a Saturday morning in paradise when they could have been hanging with their posses. Instead they watched a bunch of people walk and urged them on all along the route. We told them they were doing a good job, and they cheered us.

They handed out medals when you crossed the finish arch, and that felt good. What felt better was that I could do something to help by just walking. And I’m grateful that I was able to do that.