Cancer is not picky or fair, it can affect anyone regardless on how strong, healthy or good a person is. 

We are running together in the Race for Life in memory of our much missed father and to celebrate his life. To us he was grand, beautiful inside out, extremely knowledgeable (he knew so much about so many different subjects) and had a very strong love for life, but cancer relentlessly made him fragile ..and very quickly took him away from us. While he was in hospital we witnessed a great man fighting for his life and health with everything that he had, which was really inspirational to us and made us understand the true meaning of our last name Weigand (Weigand is an old German name that means 'Kaempfer' or in English 'Fighter'). We clearly remember one evening in hospital, when he was extremely weak and in a lot of pain lying in the bed, however we found him repeatedly slowly lifting his legs up and down. When we asked him why he was doing that and advised him that he should rest, he promptly replied: ' It’s important to keep active at my age and I will do everything I can to make sure I am able to walk again, when I leave the hospital'. We cannot even begin to imagine the pain he was feeling at that moment and honour him for getting the inner strength to fight for his health, and to keep a positive mind frame (i.e. that he was definitely going to get better), regardless of everything that was happening.

He was a very interesting person, who survived the World War 2 in Germany as a child, who had a degree in Textile Engineering, but chose to follow his passion and mainly work with animals, and he breed the most beautiful turquoise Discus (a freshwater fish, native to the Amazon River basin). Our father also had the best sense of humour (yes, a German person can have a great sense of humour!!) and he used to tell the funniest jokes and remarks about deviant politics and politicians. He had very strong values and norms as well, which we had the privilege to learn from and he always, always, always put his family first. Music was extremely important to him and it was beautiful to see how much impact it had on him. If he enjoyed the music being played you would see a massive smile on his face and his inability to contain his body from showing his enthusiasm and inner rhythm. Sometimes it looked like the music was being generated from within him, instead of him being the receiver of music being played, which was absolutely wonderful to witness. We miss him dearly and all of these characteristics that were part of him.

We are running the Race for Life on our father's birthday to celebrate his life, his love for life, and praise him through running, which was an important part of his life when he was younger (i.e. he loved running and almost ran in the Olympics in the late 50s, but this was made impossible after a knee injury). We are also running to fundraise money to help research find ways to rehabilitate those suffering from cancer and also hopefully find a way to annihilate this heinous illness. We all have to fight together against this disgusting illness, which keeps on making sick and taking away the people who are most important to us. 

We would really appreciate it if you could sponsor us, regardless of how big or small your donation is, every penny counts! Events like Race for Life are vital in funding Cancer Research UK's life-saving work into preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer. By sponsoring us, we can unite and create a force that cancer can't ignore.

Gift Aid it!

If you are a UK taxpayer, please remember to tick the Gift Aid box when donating as this will increase your donation by at least 25% at no cost to you.

Sponsor us now, and we can become cancer's worst nightmare! CANCER WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU!

Many thanks for your support,

Stefanie and Melanie Weigand, the 'Kampferinnen'