"Would you like to donate a dollar to (fill in the blank) today?" Ah the dreaded words you hate hearing when you go shopping or go out somewhere. It is just a dollar. Four quarters, ten dimes, twenty nickels, one hundred pennies. It's not much, but instead you go ahead and say, "No thank you, not today." Or in some cases, you just say 'no' and smile, leaving in a rush because you are already late for your hair cut, dinner, or to work. Don't feel bad, we all do it. I've done it plenty of times. However, I do remember one time when I was a few years younger, I'm only 17 now so I wasn't very old at the time, but I said yes to donating a dollar. I was just a kid with four quarters I had mustered up, and as I walked up to the lady I said, "I'd like to donate a dollar today." The lady looked down at me, smiling while taking my change, and gave me a light pink bracelet with a heart, cancer ribbon, and a little pink gem on it. The donation was for breast cancer funds and everyone who donated got a bracelet like this. I was content. Enjoyed the bracelet for maybe a few days then took it off, threw it in a drawer, and never really touched it much again. It didn't fit my wrist right and just seemed to annoy me.

Fast forward a few years. I hear some different dreaded words come out of my fathers mouth as he said, "Listen girls, we all need to sit down and talk as a family." He said this to me and my sister and immediately I realized that this was not going to be good news. Him and my mom sat down with us and started talking about a lump that was found on her breast. Carrying on, they ended by telling us nothing was for certain yet and more tests would be ran to determine if this was breast cancer. As you can probably guess, this was in fact cancer.

The definition for concrete is a heavy, rough building material made from a mixture of broken stone or gravel, sand, cement, and water. The cancer was the rough material and I was the mixture of all it's broken pieces. Technically, my mom was the mixture of its broken pieces, But it felt as though I was, too.

Months passed as surgeries, chemo, and radiation came. Things had gone seemingly well. Better than in fact I had expected. One day I opened a drawer in the bathroom and was just looking around it trying to find a headband to match my outfit, I didn't find a headband, but instead I came across a small, light pink bracelet that represented breast cancer. The same bracelet I got years ago for donating a dollar to help fund research for breast cancer. This little bracelet made me look back onto a time where I decided to give a bit of my money to help out for a cause that, at the time, didn't effect me.

I now wear this bracelet on my right wrist in honor of my mom and all of the other people fighting breast cancer, surviving breast cancer, suffering from breast cancer, or that have lost their lives to breast cancer. I wear it in honor of those families suffering from someone they love going through this cancer. I wear it to show my respect for these people who need as much love and support as they can get. It might not be much, but it has been a big reminder to me that every small thing you do helps somehow in the long run. So next time you run across someone asking you to donate a dollar, donate a dollar. Next time you see a homeless man on the side of the road, give him some spare change. Next time you see a friend in need, give them a free hug. My dollar might not have helped much in the grand scheme of things, but looking back at it now, I like to think I made the slightest impact on helping find ways to make things better for those with cancer. Donations also don't have to be in money, you can donate your time, abilities, and many other things not money related. Even if you don't see an impact made from your actions immediately, let your heart be what was impacted, and impact the hearts of others around you.