If You Can, I Can

I had a colleague at Syracuse ....I don't call her a friend because true be told, we didn't like each other very much in the beginning. But we did have an impact on each other's lives. Little did I know at the time how much of an impact she would have on me! In 2010 I participated in the first Syracuse Irongirl. I took my medal to work on Monday to show it off. When I showed Carol and told her and the others gathered about the experience and how great it felt to accomplish something you didn't think possible, she said "I'm going to do it next year. If you can do it, I can do it." I took it as a compliment, though I'm not sure it was. I bought her a beginner's triathlon book and connected her to the local tri club and she started training. And then...cancer, brain cancer. But you know what, it didn't stop her. She trained right through her treatment. She started that race and she finished! She was the very last to finish with a crowd of people cheering her on and not a dry eye at the finish line. One of the most powerful things I've even seen. About six months later she lost her battle. I have a picture that sits in my office of her crossing that finish line. Many times, during my own treatment I would think of Carol and wonder how the hell she trained through chemo!? I couldn't even convince myself to walk to the mailbox some days!

When I returned home after my walks at the start of my training, I was always making a mental note of a particular driveway on our street. I wasn't really sure why at first. Later, when my walks were longer and more tiring, I'd see the driveway, enter my garage, sit on the step and just sob. One day someone posted an article on survivors’ guilt and I recognized the signs. That driveway is connected to the house of a friend who is still fighting her own battle - one that is and has been much more difficult than mine. She has two beautiful young daughters and an amazing husband. They were a Godsend to us during my battle. Why was I okay and she wasn't? Why did Carol lose her fight and I didn’t? I decided that there was really only one thing to do with that guilt - "committing to a life of significance in honor of those still fighting or who have lost their battle." After 55 years, I have a personal mission statement!

That is why I accepted the very generous Disney offer. Yes, I got a lot of attention - embarrassing amounts sometimes. One special family spent their whole weekend hosting me and keeping me company. And really, I had no business being on a marathon course at this stage of training. But if just one cancer patient with a port in their chest, a mirror in their bathroom that reflects someone they don't know, and a pharmacy of meds on their kitchen counter realizes that it does get better because they heard the story, then it was worth it.

Selfishly, there was plenty in it for me too. I met a group of people who already knew their mission statement, already “committing to a life of significance in honor of those still fighting or who have lost their battle." Survivors, those who lost parents, children, spouses and friends. People who don't just raise money one time so they can run a race at some awesome place. The people who brought me to Disney, Pop's Warriors, are doing that every year, all year long. They are raising their children to do the same. I saw more compassion, more men crying, more grateful survivors and more hope than you can imagine. I knew they were good people before I got there, but until I saw them together and immediately felt a part of their family, until I saw their tears, their joy and their fight, I didn't know how pure their souls were.

The other highlight for me was the inspiration I experienced. There were people on that course who finished treatment in December! One person who ran all four races, 48.6 miles in four days, and then flew home to start treatment on Monday morning. And those are only the ones I know about. There was also inspiration that came from my thoughts of Carol. This time it was me saying “If you could, I can!”

And of course, there is the medal. It wasn't about the medal, but it’s always about the medal a little bit right?! That part comes next when I finish my race report.......... In the meantime, a friend posted this statement on FB on Sunday. It was something I wrote in 2011 after my first marathon. Eight years later is truer than I knew back then. I'm dedicating it this time to my newest friends, Pop's Warriors.

The Finish Line
January 13, 2011 at 9:33 AM
There is a silence that comes after and is hard to explain to those who were not there. You feel separated from everyone around you having lived an experience that others can’t possibility understand. It must be similar to the way cancer patients feel – chemo and radiation tearing them down to the point where they think that they have absolutely nothing left to take the next step. I’d like to say it was an easy run, an enjoyable run, or even a rewarding run, but it was not. It was a test, it was painful, it was hard beyond my wildest dreams and I wanted to give up so many times. But the reality is that when I crossed the finish line I was done. The cancer patient has to endure, has to run again, and again and again before their finish line. I did not understand the connection between endurance sports and raising money for cancer before my run. But now I understand that there are no truer words than “There is no finish line until there is a cure.”