It was several days before Thanksgiving when Vancouver resident Teresa Marble noticed a special something was missing.
In the summer, Marble had placed a remembrance rock, which she’d won in an auction and fundraiser for cancer, on a tree stump in the front yard of her Felida-area home.
The rock, a 20-pound stone brightly painted with multicolored ribbons and the words, “Supporting Fighters, Admiring Survivors, Honoring the Taken, and Never giving up Hope” rested in that spot since August.
Then, shortly before the holiday, her husband asked, “Did you move the rock?”
Marble had not moved the sentimentally significant lawn decoration. It had been stolen.
Marble said the rock cost about $20. She successfully bid on it at the Dance for a Cure event in Vancouver two years ago.
Event organizer Sherrie Robertson described the annual gathering as an hourlong jazzercise class where attendees donate items and buy raffle tickets. The proceeds benefit the American Cancer Society. Last year’s event raised $5,500, she said.
Robertson started the class as a private event seven years ago after her father was diagnosed with brain cancer. Her father died Jan. 1, 2013, but she’s kept the now public event going to support people similarly affected by the disease. Another Dance for a Cure is planned for March, she said.
Having seen family and friends battle various types of cancer, Marble decided to make a donation and put money down on the rock. Once in her possession, she thought the stone would be nice for passers-by to look at and remind them of people living with the deadly illness.
Over the past several years, Marble said, seven of her friends died from cancer. “It affects everyone,” she said. Nearly 40 percent of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, according to the National Cancer Institute.
“I don’t know if (the theft) was a joke or something more malicious,” Marble said. “I was really bummed when it went missing, but maybe someone took it because it meant something to them. I like to be optimistic.”
She did not report the theft of the rock to Vancouver police. After all, it has no real monetary value, she said.
Friends suggested Marble post a picture of the rock and an explanation of its disappearance on Facebook, so she did just that this weekend.
She said she’s hopeful the rock will return. When asked what she’d like to say to the culprit, she hesitated before saying she was more disappointed than mad.
“I almost don’t want to know” who’s responsible, she said.
