Now, we kindly ask for your attention.

Please hold the hands of the people next to you; Remain silent and hold your applause… As a group of breast cancer survivors moves toward the stage.

These women surround an empty circle. Inside it, spirit. The spirit of all those lost to breast cancer.

We use this circle of survivors to remember a time when there was laughter and conversation. We use it to bring back, for a moment, the sounds of their voices, The fleeting mist of their faces in the eyes of our minds.

A circle for all of the memories. Of a time when there was life and conversation. When they walked with us. All of the promise. The beauty. The laughter. It is a circle to hold all of the sorrow. All of our losses. And a time for us to remember them: With our thoughts and our tears.

The 3-Day is a place where it is safe to let your tears fall, into the arms of all those around you.

The women around the circle represent another spirit. The spirit of survival. The spirit to keep living. The promise of a new self. A new life, not ordered by the limits of the past, But wide open to the wildest of dreams, It holds all of our spirits, gathered here today, It holds our magnificence, And it holds the thought that if we can do this, we can do anything.

Perhaps we see a glimpse now of what those who have Departed have been waiting for us to see. In the face of fear. In the face of the unknown. The spirit to bear all things.

To take sadness, regret, loneliness and fear, And remake them into reasons to keep walking.

We connect with the spirits of the departed. We honor the unstoppable spirit of the survivors. And we walk for both.

Today we create a living, breathing human monument. More beautiful than any cast in bronze or carved of granite. And our monument shouts to all who will hear: We will never give up. We will never give up. We are alive, and we will never give up.