I Think The Myth Is A Myth

I spent a lot of time on the road during the ten weeks that my dad was sick, driving between my house and my parents' house and between my house and the hospital or the rehab center.  During much of the time, I listened to talk shows on radio stations like "NYU Docs."  Early one morning when I was on my way back home after having spent the night with my dad in the rehab center, I happened upon a talk show on the topic of the emotional aspects associated with aging.  The conversation broached the subject of terminal illness, and, before I really realized what I was doing, I had called in to the show and was on the air.  

"Stephanie from Tennessee is interested in finding out how to help her father who has recently been diagnosed with brain cancer," the host said as a way of introduction, and somehow I found myself on the air telling the short version of my dad's illness and asking for advice on how to address the emotional issues that were coming along with the changes and the challenges he was experiencing.  Right away, the host started talking about how we should be helping my dad to identify the legacy that he would be leaving behind.  As I listened to her talk, I felt a burning sensation in my gut for which I could not immediately identify the source; as the host made a few more statements and then closed the conversation, though, it hit me: she thought I was asking how to help him cope with his impending death.  I wanted to call back to tell her that my question was aimed at helping him have the best life he could, not the best death, but at that point I was crying so hard I knew my words would not be able to be understood.  I wasn't nearly ready to go to the depths of that subject yet, not for even a second, not on any level.  

Several days later I thought back to the words of the radio show host and thought that maybe I should remind my dad about some of the important things that he had done in his life so far - and also talk to him about his goals for the future related to accomplishment.  We'd had lots of conversations since he'd gotten sick about things he wanted to do (his Revised Bucket List), but maybe it was a good idea to broach the subject of what he felt he needed to get done, in whatever time he had left.

Looking back, that seems kind of ridiculous; knowing my dad as I did, I should have known that he would see that type of thinking as way too philosophical.  He was much more of the "just do it" mentality than the "talk about it/plan it out" type.  And he would probably never have been done; he would never have allowed himself to run out of items on his "to-do" list.  I can not at all picture him kicked back, thinking, "Well, I've done all that needs to be done in life; I'm just going to relax and do nothing for the rest of the time I have."  There would always have been one more challenge that he would have assigned to himself; that's just who he was.

The thing that made me remember back to that radio show and the conversations and thoughts that followed was an article that I read this week called The Myth of Finding Your Purpose.  I was expecting the article, written by a woman who had gone through cancer treatment, to be thought-provoking, and it was - just not in the way that I expected.

"Your purpose has nothing to do with what you do," the author says, and she goes on to explain that she thinks one's life purpose "is about discovering and nurturing who you truly are, to know and to love yourself at the deepest level and to guide yourself back home when you lose your way."  Reading these words, I feel that same burning sensation in my gut that I felt from the response of the talk show host on my interstate drive that day nearly three years ago. This time I can identify the source of that burning easily, though: it's anger, annoyance, and aggravation.  It's a fervent desire to dispute what she is saying, because I feel to the depth of my being that she is wrong.  She is wrong.

The purpose of life is connection; it's doing good, in whatever way and on whatever level works for each person.  It's erring on the side of kindness; it's experiencing gratitude; and it's doing what we can to leave the world a little better place when it's our time to go on ahead.  

The point she makes about the danger of only being able to feel worthy based on the feedback from others isn't new: that's called codependence.  Reading back through her article makes me want to get out my red pen and write in my own comments and corrections: for example, when she says, "When our purpose is external, we may never find it. If we tie our purpose or meaning to our vocation, goal or an activity, we're more than likely setting ourselves up for suffering down the line," I want to draw a little caret symbol in between the words "is" and "external" in the first sentence and insert the word "only," and I want to do the same thing in between the words "tie" and "our" in the second sentence and insert the words "all of."  While I'm at it, I'd like to do the same thing just before the word "goal" and squeeze in the words "or to the achievement of a specific" so that the declaration becomes "When our purpose is [only] external, we may never find it. If we tie [all of] our purpose or meaning to our vocation, [or to the achievement of a specific] goal or an activity, we're more than likely setting ourselves up for suffering down the line."  My point is this: despite the fact that people are going to disappoint us, that there will be times when we will feel that our efforts have gone unrecognized, and that sometimes we won't be able to do what we set out to do, in my opinion we need to do our best to, well, do our best to leave a positive mark - yes, an external one, because when we're gone, that's all that will be left of us.

Reading the rest of the article really only exasperates me even more.  To me, the platitudinal (not sure that's a real word, but if not it should be) bullet points about mindfulness of one's self, releasing all shame, and elevating one's own energy sound empty, or made-up, or both.  "To remember your holiness and treat yourself accordingly ... "  REALLY??  If I were buying what she's selling, I'd spend the rest of my days sipping a cold drink on a sunny beach and nothing more.  I'd be full of inter-connectness with myself, all right, but that's about it.

And to her last point: "What if your purpose is to bear witness to your suffering?"  As my dad would sometimes say in a Scooby Do voice, "HUH??" 

CLICK HERE FOR THE SOUND EFFECT I'M TALKING ABOUT!

Unlike the author of this article, I don't think that suffering is "essential;" I think it's most likely unavoidable, but those things aren't the same.  As I've said before, my family didn't need my dad to have to suffer in order to appreciate our lives or to love each other fiercely; we already had that going.  I'm not disputing her point that a person who feels fulfilled and loved is much more likely to be in a position to give back to others, but I just can't agree that a person's purpose is "about finding and nurturing yourself ... not an external ... accomplishment ... even if that ... is the most important discovery of all time."  I don't like the way she refers to some of the people she's met ("brilliant and effective activists," at that) as "messes;" my god, aren't we all in some way or another??  

As anyone who has read pretty much any of this blog or talked to me for any amount of time about perspective probably knows, I don't dispute the fact that inner peace is an important goal, one that can often be reached through having a certain perspective and by making choices about how our circumstances are viewed; I just don't think it's the most important goal in life, and I certainly don't think it's my only true life purpose.

For more food for thought, here's a video of a presentation by a speaker I think is very insightful and interesting:

Dr. Brené Brown at TEDxHouston

The Summer of the Exchange Student

Here's something that most people I know don't know about me or my family ...

During the summer of 1984, in between my freshman and my sophomore years in high school, my family served as a host family for an exchange student.

Lots of people who have hosted an exchange student have probably had a great experience, one from which they greatly benefitted and something that they would recommend that someone else do as well.  Not so much in our case.

Corinne, with Mom and Nancy, in more clothes than I ever remember seeing her wear that summer

Our exchange student's name was Corinne.  She was from Nice, France; her father was a surgeon, and her family lived in a house on the French Riviera.

I have no idea how the match between her and my family was made by the exchange program agency.  It's possible they were desperate for placement families, or maybe they just used the exchange student's age and gender to pair the person with the family.  Suffice to say, though, that from Day One it was pretty obvious that the match wasn't a great one.

Corinne was between my sister Jennifer and me in age; one of the rules of the program was that the exchange student be given her own bedroom, and so Jennifer and I agreed to bunk together in my room during the summer and let Corinne have Jennifer's bedroom.  When Corinne got to our house, we excitedly showed her around, and she was silent.  No expression, no comments.  I thought it was a language barrier issue until later that day when she started saying things like, "OK, that's your room?" and "OK, you eat in your kitchen?" with a French accent and a condescending tone.  (Apparently someone had told her that Americans say "OK" a lot, and so she started off many of her sentences with that as a kick-off.) She went to bed really early that first night, which we thought might be because she was jet-lagged from the trip.  A week or so later, though, when she was still retreating to the bedroom pretty early on a nightly basis, we asked her if she was tired, and she said, "No, I'm just boring."  We laughed for a minute, until she clarified that she actually meant "bored."  Well ok, then.

The summertime weather in Corinne's hometown peaked out at about 80 degrees; the inside of our house was that same temperature because Dad was strict about the thermostat setting, and as usual the outside temperature in the entire state of Mississippi that summer was a hot, humid 99 degrees in the shade.  She came from a land of famous painters, sightseeing, and yachting; we had fun making pottery out of mud from our backyard, chopping the heads off water moccasins with a garden hoe, and canoeing in the lake behind our house.  She was used to fancy food and fine wine; in our neck of the woods, the menu consisted of Miller Lite for the adults and sweet tea for the kids to drink and something like beanie-weenies, grilled cheese sandwiches, or spaghetti to eat.

Some of the blaring differences in our lifestyles were actually kind of funny, although probably much more so to us than to her.  Our two dogs, who lived outside, often got ticks on them, especially during the summer months.  We thought nothing of pulling off a big, juicy tick we'd found on one of the dogs; the first time I did that in front of her, she was oddly fascinated - apparently she had never even seen a picture of a tick before.  Here's the really funny kicker to that: a week or so later, we went out to eat at a restaurant with a salad bar, and my dad put sunflower seeds on top of his salad.  When Corinne saw the sunflower seeds, her eyes got really big, and she asked in half amazement/half horror, "You put ticks on your salad?"

"You put ticks on your salad??"

One responsibility that came as part of having Corinne there that fell mostly on my mother's shoulders was policing the practices of grooming and decency of dress, both of which were obviously different in our house than what Corinne was used to.  Mom figured out that the best way to address the problem was to make a blanket announcement to my sisters, Corinne, and me.  My sisters and I had to bite the insides of our cheeks to keep from smiling or laughing whenever Mom said things like, "All girls in the house must shower tonight ... be sure to shave your legs and use soap in the shower and put on deodorant afterwards."  The first time Mom told us to get our swimsuits on to go to the pool at the Tennis Club, Corinne emerged from the bedroom wearing a string bikini that consisted of about one square inch of material in total.  "Girls, let's all wear t-shirts over our swim suits so we don't get sunburned," Mom called out, quick with the reaction.  "OK, I'm used to sun all over," Corinne informed her.  "It's a strict rule at the club," Mom told her and handed her a t-shirt.

My family went to Biloxi, Mississippi, where my dad attended a business convention during the first week in August every year when I was growing up, and we did that year too, with Corinne in tow.  I remember the expression on Corinne's face when she first saw the beach there; I guess the Redneck Riviera didn't quite compare to the French one.  We had a blast, though, like we always did; we swam for probably at least ten hours a day there.  We were thrilled that the hotel where we stayed had a bar in the swimming pool, and Dad let us charge two Shirley Temples each per day to the hotel room.  By that time in the summer, Corinne had for some reason gravitated towards Nancy, who was about five years younger than she was, rather than towards Jennifer or me; Nancy entertained herself during that entire trip by pretending she could speak French and then telling Corinne to answer her back in "real French."  Quite entertaining, for us at least.

Don't get me wrong; we had fun that summer with Corinne there.  It's just that there's wasn't much, if any, of an exchange going on between her and us; pretty much all we learned about her country or her was that we were very different.  I wonder what she said about her experience as an exchange student when she went home; people probably thought she was exaggerating or fabricating when she told them about how we tanned on the roof of our house, drank water straight out of the hose, and ran around barefooted in the backyard all summer.  All in all, I guess it was an educational experience for her, although almost certainly nothing like the way she or her parents had intended for it to be, and for us, at least, it has provided many laughs over the years when we've thought back to the Summer of the Exchange Student.

The Hitchhiker, Part 1: The Gift of the Story

As I have learned since my dad went on ahead, one of the greatest gifts that can be given to someone in grief is talking to him or her about their loved one: telling a story that involves the person who has died, sharing something you remember about that person, or talking about a quality that person had or a deed he did that you appreciated can be a priceless treasure.  It doesn't have to be a significant account; sometimes something funny or unique that person did is just what the person who is grieving needs to hear.

Not long after my dad died, my mom, my husband, and I went to the Mid-South Grain Association meeting in New Orleans, or simply "Mid-South," as my dad called it in general conversation.  Dad was in charge of organizing the convention there every February, and we went after he died to represent him in a way.  My mom kept up with the administrative duties that she had assisted Dad with for many years, but, as I came to find out, it was as helpful for us to be there amongst many people who had known Dad for years - some for decades - as it was for them to have Mom filling in at the registration desk.

The highlight of the trip for me was listening to one of my dad's long-time friends and previous coworker talk about some of Dad's antics from "back in the day."  Some of the tales I had heard before, mostly from Dad himself, but others I had never heard, and I felt comforted by all of them; it felt almost as if I was getting a piece of my dad back for just a little while.

Like a lot of people, Dad was a work hard/play hard kind of guy.   But the thing that I think made him unique in that area - at least from what I have gathered from seeing him interact with people professionally and from listening to what others have said about him in a business context over the years - is that he was often able to make the work environment fun for himself and for others.  For starters, he never hesitated to laugh at himself, and his interest in everyone around him was genuine.  Never did he miss an opportunity to say hello to or to compliment or express interest in someone else; the way he assumed that pretty much everybody had good intentions somehow seemed to result in that becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.  He delighted in clowning around when time and the situation allowed; I don't know that he learned about the benefits of fostering a positive work environment in a formal setting, but he certainly applied the principles all the same and always seemed very popular with his employees because of it.

"Cotton Row" on Front Street in Memphis, Tennessee

Here's the story that my dad's friend told us from back in the early 70's, when my dad worked at a company with an office that was located in downtown Memphis:

One Friday, some of Dad's clients had come to Memphis from out of state, and he was in charge of entertaining them that night.  My mom had driven with my sisters and me to her parents' in Nashville for the weekend, and Dad was planning to drive to meet us there late that night after he had taken the customers out on the town.  He worked until closing time and then met them at a restaurant down the street from his office.  As the story goes, the dinner turned into more of a party than Dad had expected, and when it was over he returned to the office since he had parked nearby.  Evidently, he was trying to ward off the headache he thought he'd be getting the next morning and so he walked over to his desk to get to his bottle of aspirin.  Unfortunately, though, the floors were in the process of being redone, and Dad left footprints on the adhesive backing that had been laid down in preparation for the tile that was going to be installed the next day.  Apparently there was much laughter the next morning and later some friendly ribbing about the fact that everyone could tell who the culprit had been since the tracks lead straight to his desk, where several aspirin tablets were spilled on the desk, and then back to the exit door.  

As Dad himself later told the story to his friends and coworkers, after he'd gotten into his car and then started driving on the interstate headed towards Nashville, he realized that he'd had too much to drink to be driving.  As luck would have it, soon after that he saw a hitchhiker on the side of the road. Necessity being the mother of invention (and of innovation), Dad pulled over and rolled down the passenger-side window to ask the guy if he could drive and where he was trying to go.  "Sure, I can drive," the guy said, and then he added, "I'm hoping to get to Nashville tonight."

"Well, get in, then," Dad told him, probably smiling from ear to ear and thinking he had struck gold. "I'll be asleep in the back; wake me up when we get there!"

I doubt he told my mom about the details of that trip for quite some time after it happened, and it wasn't until after his death that my sisters and I heard the story.  I could picture it happening though, and hearing the tale was a much-appreciated gift, one that I will always treasure.  And it wasn't Dad's last interaction with a hitchhiker either, ...

To be continued ... 

Thoughts on The Boston Marathon

I grew up watching, reading, and listening to news about the Boston Marathon; as a runner and a fan of the competitive part of the sport for nearly 35 years, I've always loved following the stories from races for both the top contenders and the back-of-the-packers.  As a current back-of-the-packer myself, I know that every runner has a story, and, especially for big events like marathons, every finish impacts each participant in many different ways.  

The marathon is the apex of the sport for lots of runners, the quintessential goal, the quest of the most dedicated amongst us.  And the Boston Marathon, or "The Boston" or just "Boston," as it is typically called in the athletic world, is the pinnacle of all marathons.  It's the world's oldest ongoing marathon, with this being its 117th year, and it's probably the world's most well-known road-racing event.  Boston is always run on Patriots' Day, the third Monday in April, which, unlike the majority of other marathons in the U.S., means that it's always held on a Monday.  Because of the many hills along the course and the tendency for the temperatures to soar into the 80-degree range during the event, the race is considered to be one of the more challenging marathons in our country.  The Boston Marathon is the only marathon in the U.S. that has a qualifying time requirement for entry, based on the gender and age of each runner, with the general rules stating that a runner must have completed a "qualifying marathon" within an 18 month period prior to Boston.  As a result of the strict qualifying requirements and the difficulty factor, Boston Marathon runners are generally revered by all other runners, or at least by those of us who have been involved in the sport for awhile. 

A masterpiece about Dad's first Boston by my sister, Jennifer

Growing up, I remember hearing my dad talking about Boston as if it were the Holy Grail of running.  Even before he had run it the first time in 1979 at the age of 35, I remember him telling my sisters and me about the course, which runs through eight different towns and finishes on Copley Square in Boston.  In the months leading up to his Boston debut, I remember him worrying aloud about Heartbreak Hill, the most well-known challenge in the race, even after he'd run up and down the levee alongside the Mississippi River literally hundreds of times as part of the 100+ miles per week he ran for months before the race.  I remember my grandfather, my dad's dad, coming to stay with my sisters and me for a few days while my parents went to Boston that April, and I remember my mom calling us after the race to tell us how Dad had done (his finish time was 2:46:04).  I remember standing in the kitchen of our house with my sisters, cheering through the phone line for my dad and then chanting his finish place over and over, so many times that the number was forever lodged in my brain.  In fact, one day, during the time when my dad was sick, we were talking about the many races he had run over the years, and he was surprised when I told him that I still remembered what place he finished in at his first Boston:  1,196th, which put him in the top 15% of finishers that year.

There are around half a million spectators and usually between 20,000 and 25,000 runners at every Boston Marathon.  The Centennial Boston Marathon, held in 1996, which was my dad's second time to run it, set a record for the most entrants, at around 38,000 runners.  

I remember Dad talking excitedly after he'd gotten back from the race the first time about going to the Bill Rogers Running Store and meeting Bill Rodgers, who had won the marathon for the third time that year, setting a course record in the process.  Dad commented that he especially admired the guy, "Boston Billy" as he was called, because of his modesty and his friendliness, which, ironically, were also two of Dad's strongest qualities.  The women's division was won that year by Joan Benoit, then 21 years old, who, with a time of 2:35, bettered the previously set record for women's finish time by 8 minutes. 

Joan, or "Joanie" as she was called, won Boston again in 1983, this time finishing in 2:22, breaking the women's world record by two minutes, and then she followed up by taking the gold medal in the Olympic marathon in L.A. in 1984, the year the women's marathon was established as an Olympic event.  She, incidentally, still holds the record for the American woman with the fastest finish in both the Olympic marathon and in the Chicago Marathon.  Yesterday, Joan ran Boston again to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her most recent Boston win, as did the men's winner from '83, Greg Meyer, who was in fact the last American to have won the race.  Joan, now age 55, was quoted as saying before the race that she planned to "go out fast," aiming to finish within 30 minutes of her winning time from 30 years ago, a goal that my dad would have absolutely loved hearing about - and one that she achieved with a finish time of 2:50.

To Joanie, from my dad and me: you're still a total badass!

Countless people - even those who have never even cared at all about the Boston Marathon before yesterday - watched the replays and read the recounts of the tragedy that unfolded after the bombings, the vast majority of people whom, I would venture to guess, realized that they could not even imagine the chaos and the terror than ensued on the race course and around the city, nor could they really comprehend the emotions  about the losses suffered by the runners and spectators of so many things: life, safety, trust, faith, and even reward for such dedication and effort on the part of the thousands of runners who trained extensively for the race over the course of the last six months or more.  

"To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month, or even one year - but for a lifetime." ~Bill Rodgers, 1979

"To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month,

or even one year - but for a lifetime." ~Bill Rodgers, 1979

My brother Lee has qualified for Boston twice and has run it once; he shares in the family's fascination with the marathon's history and with each year's competitive field.  No one in my family was at the Boston Marathon this year; however, on some level, we can imagine the turmoil experienced by those who were there yesterday because of tragic events that have affected us at other races in years past, which is a different story in its own right.  Like everyone else, my family feels so sad for everyone affected by the bombing; there is no understanding the evil that drives such madness.  The term Heartbreak Hill has a whole new meaning for all of the runners there yesterday and for those of us whose hearts go out to those injured and otherwise affected by the malevolence of those responsible.

In memory of Martin Richard 

Part 18 – The Long And Winding Road

Continued from Part 17

Part One of Our Trip to Duke/Our Journey Of Hope

As was the pattern, sleep did not come easy for Dad the night before we left to go to Duke; Mom started out the night lying in the bed with him while my middle sister J and I slept in the guest room upstairs.  

Around 3 a.m., Mom shouted up the stairs that she needed help, and we came running.  Under Mom’s supervision, Dad had gotten up to go into the bathroom using his walker.  When they returned to the bedroom, he backed up to the bed so he could sit down and then stretch out.  Unfortunately, though, he misjudged the distance to the bed, and he ended up on the floor.  He wasn’t hurt, but he was angry and frustrated that he couldn’t get himself up.  Mom tried to help him but couldn’t get him up.  Without saying a word, J and I each got on one side of him and put our arms under his elbows to try to raise him up, but he just couldn’t get his legs under him even with our support.  Finally, I told him to scoot around so that he was half-kneeling, facing the bed, and to push up on the bed with his arms as we pushed him from behind.  It took a minute and some effort on all of our parts, but with that leverage he eventually got himself back onto the bed, albeit in a heave-ho kind of way.  Fortunately, there were no injuries, except to Dad’s pride.  After that, J volunteered to keep Dad company, and Mom and I went upstairs to get a couple of hours of sleep before we had to hit the road. 

That morning, we hurriedly finished packing the car and got ourselves and Dad ready.  Pulling out of the driveway, part of me felt like a character from National Lampoon’s Family Vacation, and the other part felt like a soldier going off to battle.  We’d taken countless Road Trips over the years as a family, but this was different - we were on a Mission.  Our plan was to cover the distance – roughly 500 miles – during the day so that we could get to Durham before dark, get a good night’s sleep (ha!), and be ready for the first of our two days of clinic appointments at Duke.  Following our mid-morning appointment on Tuesday, we had the first appointment of the day on Wednesday, and we hoped that we would finish in time to make it all the way back to my parents’ house that night so that we’d be back at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving Day.

I volunteered to be the Driver, and J served as the Co-Pilot and one-person Entertainment Committee.  Mom kept Dad company in the back seat, and behind them the back of the SUV was filled with suitcases and other necessary gear, including Dad’s wheelchair and his walker.  We’d considered bringing Dad’s portable DVD player along but had decided against it since Dad had yet to watch more than a few minutes of a TV show at a time since he’d gotten sick.  We rolled along for about two hours and then it started, the “How much further?” questioning from Dad.  

When I think back about how difficult and miserable it must have been for Dad to go on that trip, I just want to cry, out of sadness for him and out of gratitude that he never once even considered saying that he didn’t want to go.  We had told him about the clinical trial and about Avastin; he couldn’t remember the name of the medicine or even where we were going to get it most of the time, but he knew that he had to keep his eye on the ball, to “tough it out,” as he put it. Dad didn’t believe in Quick Fixes or Get Rich Quick Schemes; he was from the "No pain, no gain" school of thinking and he often said, “If it sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.”  But when we told him that there was a drug that was considered cutting-edge and “the drug to get” to treat his type of cancer, he was ready to go all in because he trusted us and because there didn’t really seem to be any other options, at least none that any of us wanted to take.

Even though Dad consistently rated his pain level as a 5 or 6 on a scale of 10, there was no doubt that he was in pain, and, from my perspective now, I see clearly that it was emotional pain as well physical.  I don't think anyone can truly understand just how terrifying and exhausting it must it be to not clearly understand where one is going, how long it's going to take to get there, or what the purpose of the trip is.  Dad hung in there, but it was obviously very hard and stressful for him, and his pain levels reflected that.  The pain medicine didn’t seem to help very much, and so we resorted to Plan B, the art of Distraction.  Every 15 to 20 minutes, Dad asked, “How much further?”  We used his “rounding down” trick, the one he used to use when he went out the door to run or ride his bike and told Mom that he’d be back sooner than he actually intended to be, just so she wouldn’t hassle him.  And we talked, and talked, and talked.  J is a master at coming up with conversational topics, really she is and always has been, and she did a very impressive job of thinking up memories from our childhood, celebrity gossip, funny stories, and – her favorite – survey questions:  “If you could get any kind of car you wanted, regardless of cost, what would it be?”  “If you hadn’t ended up with the career you have, what else would you have chosen?”  “Name five people, living or not, that you would most like to see in concert.”  I put the petal to the metal, and she kept the conversation flowing.  

I still haven’t figured out if it was a side effect of the steroids or another medication or if it had something to do with the area of his brain that had been affected, but Dad had an absolutely unquenchable thirst, one that seemed particularly insatiable while we were on this trip.  In between the “How much further?” inquiries, he petitioned for pit stops for Diet Coke.  Actually, he threw in a wild-card request for a Foster’s beer a few times too, but we convinced him that it was better to wait until we got to the hotel for that.  Each time he got a drink, he gulped down the Diet Coke like a man in the desert, and, right on cue less than half an hour later, he announced that he had to go to the bathroom, even though he’d just said that he didn’t have to “go” when we’d stopped for the drink.  Every time he had to stop to use the facilities, we had to get the walker out of the back of the SUV, unfold it, and then walk with him to the restroom, guiding him over welcome mats and around other customers and product displays in the aisles.  Once, “necessity” forced us to stop at a pigsty of a gas station.  A couple of times Dad’s proclamation from the backseat came when there wasn’t a place with a restroom available. After a few more minutes of driving, he let us know that he meant business, and I hastily pulled over on the side of the road.  J kept him from barreling out of the vehicle while I rushed around to get his walker so he could steady himself as traffic whizzed (pun intended) by us.  

After several rounds of this, we decided to help him pace himself with the Diet Cokes; for one reason, we didn’t think it was healthy for him to ingest all that caffeine and other chemicals, and also we realized we’d be on the road much longer if we had to keep having to make so many stops.  He didn’t seem to see the correlation between drinking so much so fast, the need for so many bathroom stops, and the time that was being added to our drive.  About 6 hours into the trip that we’d estimated would take about 8 hours, he was frazzled, exhausted, uncomfortable, and anxious for the trip to end.

By the time the sun went down, we still had more than 100 miles to go.  “How much further?” came more and more often from the backseat, and I have to admit we told him “Not too much!” many, many times.  After awhile, he pressed for more information, and we starting saying, “Roughly half an hour,” which we carried on with for at least an hour.  Finally, we saw the road sign that said, “Durham – 30 miles,” but just past that was NIGHTTIME ROAD CONSTRUCTION!  We were stuck in stop-and-go traffic for another hour, not fun.  Dad was exhausted and exasperated, ready to stretch out in a bed and drink a Foster’s over ice.

As we pulled into the hotel parking lot after more than 10 hours on the road, I breathed a sigh of relief.  I was so glad we’d finally made it, but at the same time I couldn’t help but think about the uphill climb we still had ahead of us and wonder:  How much further??

Up Next – Part 19 – Black Badge of Courage

I Try

Dad, on Lookout Mountain

When I read the reports and heard the talk,

The prognosis and the circumstances gray,

An exception, a miracle, a reward for our fight

I thought surely would come our way.

Even as you put so much effort into

Eating, and talking, just holding on,

Even as your body bore the brunt,

The thought of you going seemed so wrong.

You told me once that it’s possible

That tears could run out in supply.

I know now that cannot be true

And that my pillow will never be dry.

And now, so many days, hours, months later,

The knowledge that it happened settles in my brain,

In spite of the confusion, rage, and sorrow,

The devastation and most of all the pain.

If you wonder, if you have a trace of the thought

That any of you may be forgotten or gone

Or your impact lessened by the hastening of your departure,

This is one time I have to tell you you’re wrong.

I miss so much the way we were;

I miss you every minute of every day.

I try to be tough so I’ll make you proud,

But I just don’t know how to be ok.

One Telephone Pole At A Time

The year I turned 35, I decided to run my first marathon.  Dad thought it was a lofty goal for me to set for myself because he knew I didn’t have time to put in anywhere near the kind of high mileage that he used to when he was marathon training.

But he was supportive as always anyway, prodding me with weekly emails and phone calls to get out there and get the mileage in.  Prior to that time, the furthest distance I’d ever covered in one run was 9 miles.  I was nervous about breaking through to the double-digits of distance when it came time for the ten-miler in my training program, and so Dad said that if my husband, my kids, and I wanted to come and stay with he and my mom for the weekend, he would go the distance with me. 

On the morning of the run, my husband drove Dad and me ten miles away from my parents’ house and dropped us off on a country road.  Dad and I started off on the run talking about work and family and running and whatever other topics popped into our heads, and after awhile we lapsed into comfortable silence like we had done on so many runs together while I was growing up.  Every so often, Dad, ever the Pace-Master, offered me encouragement to “keep up the pace” or to try to go "half a step faster" as we went along.  One of Dad’s running mantras was “If you practice slow, you’ll race slow,” yet another of his pieces of Running Advice for the Road, as I began to call it in my mind. 

At one point on our run that day, he told me to keep running and he would catch back up to me in a few minutes, and then he ducked behind an old, abandoned barn to go to the bathroom.  Even with his pit stop, he closed in on me quickly, and we were soon running step for step again as we continued our dual effort on the road.  Over the last couple of miles, my body and my mind were wearing thin, and I told him I didn’t know if I could make it the rest of the way.  “Just concentrate on making it past one telephone pole at a time, and eventually you will get there,” he advised.  "It won't seem so bad if you just divide it up."  And so that's what I did until we made it back to my parents' house, and, with that, I had broken into the double-digits of distance.

These days, I pick up my phone to call or text Dad several times in the course of a week before Reality hits me.  Damn.  Again.  The tears that spring to my eyes are always followed by an emotion, like loneliness, despair, or fury at the injustice of it all.  I sometimes start to spiral into thinking about how much I miss him, what he would say to me at that moment in time, or even who I am as a person without him in my life now.

But, after so many times of this happening over the months since Dad went on ahead, I’ve figured out how to get through it, thanks to the strength, inspiration, support, perspective, and advice I was lucky enough to get from him over the years:  by just concentrating on making it past one telephone pole at a time, hoping it won't seem so bad if I just divide it up. 

The Fight Against Cancer

When I was in college, my grandmother (my mother’s mother) was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She had surgery, went through chemo, and made it into remission for awhile.

After I graduated from college, I lived with her and my grandfather for a few months while I did one of my internships at a hospital near their house.  At the time, my grandmother, then out of remission, was struggling through her second course of chemo, which did not do its job that time around.  She held on long enough to give her input during the planning of my wedding and to hold her youngest grandchild in her arms for the first time, and then she went on ahead, two weeks before I got married.  And thus begun my membership in the I Hate Cancer Club!

Spurred on by this over the years, I’ve participated in at least 25 runs benefiting organizations involved in the fight against cancer, including the Race for the Cure, the St. Jude Marathon and Half-Marathon, and various other races.  Each time, I was proud and humbled to be part of the effort and excited to be part of the extended cheering squad for those involved in this war.

Last August, I participated in the Avenue of Hope 5K benefiting the American Cancer Society in honor of Cindy, a friend of mine battling cancer.  It was a small, local charity race, my favorite kind, full of meaning and spirit and camaraderie.  A group of my friends also completed the race in honor of Cindy as well as many other loved ones who are fighting or have fought this terrible disease.

Cindy with her "team" at the ACS race, August 2010

 Only eleven weeks later, taking part in the fight against cancer took on a whole new meaning for me and the rest of my family. 

Last weekend, I ran the Avenue of Hope 5K again, this time with my younger daughter Molly, who proudly wore her grandfather’s racing shirt in his memory and who won her age division.

While my dad was sick, one thing that irritated him was, as he termed it, “too much talking.”  I could never figure out if it was because of the fatigue from which he suffered because of the incessant insomnia caused by the medications he was taking, because of the tumor in his brain, because of the emotional stress he was under, or because of something else that he couldn’t tolerate chaos or noise during that time.  Many times he asked us to be quiet, even though oftentimes he himself would later break into the silence by asking a question or making a comment.  Most of the time, he just couldn’t tolerate someone talking about the same thing for too long or asking him too many questions, and he particularly disliked it when several people around him were having a conversation and when other people were taking what he considered to be too long to figure something out.  He just didn’t see the need for inefficiency, something to which I can certainly relate.  As we talked about schedules and plans and details that we felt needed to be ironed out, Dad often chimed in by saying, “Don’t worry – just hurry!” meaning he thought there should be less discussion and more action.  One of my nieces even paraphrased Dad at one point when we were talking about something we were going to do later in the day and said, “Let’s quit talking about it and just do this thing!”

As much as I am honored and motivated to continue to participate in events to raise money and to promote awareness for this worthy cause, though, and as much as I take notice of the bumper stickers and related paraphernalia for awareness of different types of cancers, I’m pretty sure everyone is aware of cancer and the devastation it leaves in its wake at this point.  What I want - what we really need in this fight - are prevention and a cure.  Now let’s quit talking about it and just do this thing!