[The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon is a 46-hour (no sitting, no sleeping, some crying) event that raises money for the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital. Thanks to the Four Diamonds Fund, no family facing the heartache of pediatric cancer is ever turned away because of an inability to pay. And THON is instrumental in helping to keep that promise:  Since it began in 1973, THON has raised more than $78 million. It is the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. It is amazing. It is equal parts rock concert and pep rally, carnival and talent show, family reunion and giant Zumba class on Red Bull. And it is this weekend. You can check it out in real-time here. And you can donate to the cause here.]

My THON story spans 17 years and is marked by three letters to different members of the same family, each meaning more than the last.

My first THON letter was written to Lauren Carrano in January 1995. I was a senior and had scored a coveted slot as a THON dancer in the then-48-hour marathon held every February at Penn State’s University Park campus. As luck would have it, my partner would be one of my best friends and roommates, Betsy. She and I were given Lauren’s name as a pen-pal, someone we were encouraged to write to in order to make a personal connection with a Four Diamonds Fund family. We would be dancing for all the Four Diamonds kids, but specifically in honor of Lauren.

Lauren was 7 and in the second grade, with two siblings — Ashley, 9, and Vinny, 6. Lauren’s mom, Irene, wrote back and told us that Lauren had leukemia but that she was in remission. Her last round of chemo had just finished, and she’d remained upbeat through it all. The cancer, Irene wrote, had been particularly hard on Ashley and Vinny.

THON weekend passed in an emotional, sleep-deprived blur. We met the Carranos on the dance floor that weekend and played with Lauren for awhile, but they were whisked off to several Four Diamonds Family functions throughout those 48 hours. That year we raised over $1.1 million. As the marathon culminated in an emotional few hours on Sunday evening and the crowd swelled into the thousands to hear the impressive fundraising total, we didn’t get a chance to reconnect with the Carranos and say goodbye.

Still, I was relieved that our little dance partner was winning the battle. I was happy that she had the energy to play with us, and that her family’s story would have a happy ending. I was 22, and naive to cancer’s devastation.

After a thank-you letter from Irene later that spring, we lost touch. Betsy and I graduated in May and went our separate ways. I met a guy at my first “real” job, and the following spring we moved South together. Two years later, he was diagnosed with cancer.

I thought about THON, and about Lauren, quite a bit during those long months of surgeries and chemo. I wondered how such a slight little girl could have smiled through the same kinds of drugs that were knocking this grown man to his knees. I had a new respect and understanding for what Irene and her husband went through, too. And eventually, I came to feel the terrifying hopefulness in the word “remission,” how it does not necessarily mean “happy ending”; instead it drops you in an uneasy waiting place somewhere between sick and well. But he did get well. And we got married.

Less than four years later, Betsy and I reconnected at Penn State for the bachelorette party of our other roommate, Kim. She chose the weekend of THON for the reunion, so Bets and I made sure to stop by Rec Hall, where it was now being held. We sat way up in the bleachers and watched the chaos below. It was bigger and louder, but otherwise comfortingly familiar. It was the winter of 2003, my first time back on campus since I’d graduated eight years before.

As we sat taking in the whole scene, I noticed a familiar-looking woman walking up the stairs toward us. She sat down a few rows in front of us. I couldn’t place where I knew her from, so I looked at the man sitting next to her, presumably her husband. He was wearing a jacket that had several THON patches on it … it looked like one for just about every year since 1995. Embroidered across the back of his jacket was “Lauren Nicole Carrano — 1987-1996. Forever in our hearts.”

It was Lauren’s parents. She’d died the year after we danced for her at THON.

My heart sank as that news settled into it. We marveled at the coincidence of them being right in front of us eight years later, in a crowd of hundreds, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to them. As soon as we left, I regretted that. So when I returned to South Carolina I dug out my old THON letters and wrote a new one, this one to Irene, hoping they might still live at the same address. I told her about seeing them, and about Chris’s cancer, and about how Betsy and I remember Lauren, and always will.

She wrote back a month later, stunned and touched that her daughter lived on in our hearts. The letter warmed me from the inside out, but again we lost touch.

Another eight years went by before my path crossed once again with the Carranos’. This time, I received a Facebook friend request from Irene. At first I didn’t recognize the name, but a few days later she sent me a direct message, reintroducing herself, saying she had looked me up and was hoping I was the same Robyn Passante who had reached out to her almost a decade before. I accepted her friend request, and we caught up on our families and lives. She told me Ashley was now a mother, and Vinny, who was in kindergarten when I met him that THON weekend way back in ’95, had just returned from serving in Afghanistan as a Marine. He was starting school at Penn State, and though he’s just a freshman, he’d been picked to dance in this year’s THON, in memory of his sister.

So last week I wrote a new letter to yet another Carrano — this one to Vinny. It will be given to him during Mail Call this weekend, along with one from Betsy and no doubt a host of others from family and friends. When the dancers’ legs are aching and they’re starting to wonder how in the hell they’ll stay awake and on their feet for another whole night and day, the magic of Mail Call happens, when each dancer is handed a huge packet of love and encouragement from friends and family — and sometimes strangers.

Lauren died much, much too young, from a disease I wish was wiped from the face of the earth. But she does continue to live inside people she touched, even for the briefest of moments many years ago. It is a hollow consolation, I’m sure, but it is the best I can offer her family. I’m so proud of what Vinny and the other 707 dancers are doing this weekend, and I can’t wait to hear this year’s fundraising total. In 2011, THON raised an astounding $9.5 million.

It’s true what they say: THON never leaves your heart, and neither do the kids you dance for. FTK Forever!

Postscript: The dancers are done and the totals are in: This year’s THON shattered last year’s record by over $1 million — 2012 THON raised more than $10.6 million for kids facing pediatric cancer!! And I hear that Vinny spoke during Family Hour, bringing the crowd of thousands to tears with his story about losing his sister, Lauren, and how much the only THON she attended, back in 1995, meant to her, and continues to mean to his family. Congratulations Vinny and everyone else involved with such an outstanding event.

2011 THON Promo Video