Mother has been gone for a little over a year. Dad, a little over a year and a half. Their house is sold and my sisters are wrapping up the estate. A few possessions remain in a storage warehouse. And many questions have been answered (with a few that we’ll never truly understand.) I can’t speak for my sisters but it has left me exhausted, a little broken and questioning much of what is real and what isn’t. As my feet get back up under me, I am moving toward gratitude. I am who I am because of my parents. For that, I am thankful — warts and all. Their illness and eventual passing was a marathon — one that left us exhausted. The cloak of grief is beginning to lift as I linger at the finish line.
Many of you are nodding your head. It’s part of life. Even C.S. Lewis, a man of immense faith, shook his fist at the sky when his wife died (his book on grief is powerful, I recommend it). I know I have questioned so much of my life, how I’ve lived and how I will choose to live it. Like heat forging iron, that self-reflection has left me stronger — but I knew I needed a spark to pull myself out of that whirlpool of navel gazing.
My friend Doug provided that spark. We were doing the Paul Lacoste bootcamp together and after a particularly competitive 300-meter sprint, he said, “Come run a marathon with us.”
I should of laughed. But I didn’t. I stopped and listened to what he had to say.
I ran a marathon in 2010. It was the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington D.C. and I ran it as a fundraiser for the Melanoma Research Foundation. Very generous donors gave $13,000. At mile 20, I developed leg cramps (I didn’t train well) but I finished. It was one of the most rewarding days of my life.
Then I came home to find my job had been cut to part-time and my dog had died. I was thrown into a panic and never really felt like I got to enjoy the race. I said, “I’ll run another marathon when pigs fly.”
On May 6th, I will run the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati with Doug and several of his friends. He, his friend Mike (who is now my friend) and I have run many, many miles on the Ridgeland trails together. Sometimes our group is bigger. Sometimes it is just us. And while I should say the fitness and the goal setting has been what has pulled me out of my funk, I’d say it is more that I am running with some of the finest men I know (and Liz on occasion — and she transferred me her entry, so she is my hero).
In the last few weeks, I’ve run 16, 18, 20, 20 and 15 miles. I’ll be fine. My friends will pull me through the 26.2 mile run. Yes, it will be painful — but it is good pain. Pain that makes you spiritually, emotionally and physically stronger.
One percent of the World’s population has run a marathon. That means that 99% are smarter than I am. But this isn’t about logic. It’s about me running to be a better father, husband and friend. It’s a challenge that is bigger than me. And that is how I want to live the rest of my life.
Hopefully when I get home everything will be fine (I don’t want Pip to croak.) I know, though, I will be trained and ready for any other marathon life throws at me.