A Cause to Re-Connect

This past Friday afternoon I joined about 150 family members & friends at Tunxis Plantation Golf Course in Connecticut for the 21st annual Chris Kelly Open. The yearly golf tournament is in memory of my cousin Chris who we lost to a rare form of cancer when he was just 28. Over the years it has always been a real "family" tournament with no major sponsors; just caring members of a circle of friends & family that has been part of this tournament since its inception. Through their generosity well over $125,000 has been donated in the memory of Chris and his mother, my late, lovely aunt Lorraine to the UCONN Medical Center in Farmington, Ct and the George Bray Cancer Center at the Hospital of Central Ct. in my home town of New Britain. However, that's only part of what this tournament has become over the last 21 years. As valuable a resource as it has been for those two wonderful research centers, the tournament is also a valuable resource of another kind. It gives all of us who participate each year a chance to re-connect with each other. Cousins, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters & friends who don't see one another nearly enough as the years pass by and we live our lives. But for that day, and in some cases even just for a few moments, we remember those days gone by when we all were much younger & we lived, played, laughed....and sometimes even cried together. The fight against cancer is one of the noblest of fights...and when you can fight that fight in the atmosphere of The Chris Kelly Open each year.....cancer patients are never forgotten.....and with a smile, you realize neither are those faces that have been part of that fight for more than 20 years.