Trudging Through With Tears, Laughter
Walkers Go the Extra Mile (or 39) For Money to Combat Breast Cancer

By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 7, 2007

The fundraising walk started out fun, with Erin French and her stepmother and friends talking and laughing. But after they'd gone 20 miles of the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, and it was cold and rainy and their legs were sore, sometimes French would stop.

Then she'd say, "I'm doing this for you, mom."

Her mother, Kathleen French, who loved to laugh and throw parties, died of breast cancer when Erin French was 9.

French, now 18, spent the weekend with thousands of volunteers on a walk that kicks off a series of events across the country to raise money for research, prevention and treatment of breast cancer. In the Washington area, organizers said they raised $7.4 million.

The walk was both funny and sad. Volunteers waved pink pompoms, feather boas and cowboy hats; they rang cowbells, honked horns and cheered on the people walking behind them. Every time French saw one zany volunteer wearing a cow suit, she laughed. He told her that her laugh sounded like someone stepping on a duck.

And when French saw people with signs that said, "I'm walking for my mom," she felt herself choke up.

An estimated 240,000 new cases in the United States will be diagnosed this year, and more than 40,000 women will die of the disease, according to federal statistics.

"It's pretty humbling," said Dirk French, Erin French's dad, who helped with cleanup at the march that wound through Maryland neighborhoods, D.C. streets and along the Potomac River, ending at the Kennedy Center, with volunteers covering either a marathon (26 miles) or 39.3 miles over the weekend.

The event gave Erin French a chance to honor her mother. She remembers her mom taking her exploring in small towns, looking for antiques -- and ice cream shops. French would always get chocolate fudge, her mom, pumpkin.

"She was a pistol," Dirk French said, remembering wife Kathleen. She had a lot of energy, lots of friends and laughed often, and loudly. "She was always thinking, 'What's the next fun event that we can do?' Instead of having just a bland day, let's have a party."

Kathleen French was Irish, a teacher, a Catholic. She had four young children when her cancer was diagnosed.

Erin French was too young to really understand. But one day, when she was bouncing on a bed at a friend's house, the girl told Erin that her mother was going to die.

When French got home, she and her mom cried and went to church together. "I really cherish that," she said. "That was one of the last Masses we had."

All this year, French and her stepmother, Barbara French, prepared for the walk at their home in Woodbridge and raised the $1,800 each walker needed to participate.

As she's grown older, family and friends have said Erin French has taken after her mom, exuberant and friendly. And that laugh: "If you hear it once, you will never forget it!" her stepmother said.

It spread through the walk: When they were about halfway through the marathon Saturday, something made Erin French crack up. "I laughed at her laugh," said her best friend, Denise Jones. "The more she laughs, I laugh. The more I laugh, she laughs." Soon everyone around had started giggling, too. "It's contagious."

But they had miles to go, and hills. It got colder and started to rain. French wanted to stop, again and again.

That night, they slept in tents, limping to the entrance and falling in. Yesterday morning, Barbara French taped her wobbly knees. Erin French did her ankles and then her shins.

But the sun was out, the sky was blue and they followed the bobbing, sometimes hobbling, line of pink through the city.

At one corner, a bunch of sorority sisters called out, "Thanks, ladies!" Karen Paide and Sandi Goetsch, wearing pink scrubs, held a sign from other Johns Hopkins Hospital patients thanking the thousand of walkers. "When you touch their hands, you can feel the spirit," Goetsch said, slapping palms as people walked by. "You can feel the love."

Erin French beamed and said, "The people are awesome! That's what's kept us going." They saw a big group of girls and boys wearing bras, pink-and-black lace and green polka dot, over their T-shirts. A woman cheered: "You are the best! You did it for our breasts!"

And then there was the Kennedy Center -- the finish line. They'd made it.

The guy in the cow suit grabbed them in a group hug, and they started to cry. Jones called her mom. Erin and Barbara French signed up for the walk next year. Erin danced through the crowd, laughing.

Staff writer Susan Levine contributed to this report.