Once you get past the congestion of sheer numbers and the mix of colors, designs, and graphic techniques, there's one thing that stands out on every team shirt at the Seaside Heights, NJ JDRF Walk: cure. It's not just because the event is called the Walk to Cure Diabetes (emphasis mine), or because insulin is "not a cure" for autoimmune diabetes. It's not because parents are struggling to pay for their children's pumps and CGMs, or because adversity breeds strength.

The reason we see the word cure is same reason we see another word on team names and slogans, and that word is hope.

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Charlie’s Angels were in large numbers for the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes. It was a great day. So cool seeing all of our friends and family coming together for our cause.

We looked pretty darn spiffy in our T-shirts designed by Charlie. Of course he managed to make it a hockey theme - completely ignoring my suggestion for T-shirts based on the movie, The Piano, about a mute Scotswoman sold into marriage to a New Zealand frontiersman.

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The winners of the first annual Chachi Awards wore their medals with pride.

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He doesn’t say "if there’s a cure." He says, "When there’s a cure."

We are on our way to Carlucci’s, a restaurant that will donate 15% of one night’s dinner sales to JDRF.

I glance at Charlie in the rear-view mirror.

"When there’s a cure, I’m going to take my pump, jump up in the air and smash it down on the ground like football players do when they score a touchdown."

"You mean you’re going to spike it?" I ask.

"Mmhmm."

"And I’m going to throw all of my diabetes supplies in the garbage."

He stares through the car window at used car dealerships and strip malls, thinking longer about it.

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Most of the teams who participate in our local JDRF Walk for a Cure are composed of friends and family walking for a child with diabetes. The child gets to be the focus of attention for a fun-filled day of raising awareness for that which normally separates him (or her) from his friends. There's also the smattering of company, corporate, and fraternal teams walking in the name of public service.

And then there's the third type of team: those who walk to honor the memory of a loved one killed by diabetes.

Memorial teams may be the fewest in number, but they serve as a poignant reminder of why we must walk - why we must continue to walk - and why insulin is not a cure.

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I guess technically, I joined the diabetes online community back in October, 2005 when I joined dLife, and I became active in the overall DOC some time in 2008 -- but it wasn't until this year that I, and others, had the opportunity to "eyeball" the folk we'd been e-mailing, blogging to, commenting blog posts from, tweeting, and otherwise conversing with on various diabetes-related forums and social networks. 2009 is also the year dLife launched the dLife Community, and the year I started blogging here at Blogabetes.

Some of my year's highlights include:

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The Web Warren

Picture the "Easter Parade" that was once the New York City population strolling to and from church in their Sunday best, but which has now become a display for the some of the most outlandish millinery creations seen outside a Hallowe'en Parade, a Mardi Gras float, or a Vegas spectacular. Now transfer that (pardon the pun!) to a T-shirt design contest for people of peripatetic pancreases and put it on a planked walkway peripheral to the plage (beach), and you have the Seaside Heights JDRF walk.

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