Marathons and Cancers #2
Today I am grateful for the opportunity to be a wife, parent, grandparent, sister, daughter, aunt, friend.
Each of these roles and more enrich my life and teach me so much.
After the Chicago Marathon, I was hooked. I wanted to keep running marathons, and so did Darcy. With Sam being a toddler, we decided to each run different ones the next year. Darcy ran the Des Moines Marathon and I ran the WhistleStop in Ashland, WI.
My sister Zita, recovered from treatment and moving on from her cancer diagnosis, set her sights on finishing this one. Her prognosis was good, and the rest of the sisters went about doing the follow-up we felt we needed to do. I had had a baseline mammogram at 35, before I got pregnant. Now, I would do a yearly mammogram and I also got better at self-exams. Breast cancer was now a part of our family history, but so is running.
My sister Ruth also decided to join us there for her second one, and two friends and high school classmates, Beth and Melissa, signed on as well. Tom, the husband of Zita's friend Sue, ran too. My sister Aileen ran the half-marathon, and my sister Leonice and sister-in-law Annie came along to cheer us on. So there was a good-sized contingent that headed to northern Wisconsin that October.
It was a chilly fall morning as we got bussed to the starting line. We ran back to town on paved trail along an abandoned rail line. The conditions were good and the course was flat. It seemed like it took forever to get back to town, but I knew I could do it. I was pleased with my finishing time, and then set my sights on cheering on the others who were yet to come in. Melissa and Beth had done some training together, and it was fun to see them achieve this goal. It's a wonderful feeling you only get when you are done.
Zita had many who knew her cheering her on at various points along the route, and by the time she crossed the finish line, she also had many strangers cheering her on. It was a special moment to see her come across that line, a year after finishing up her active treatment. I could only imagine what was going through her mind and heart. The local newspaper captured this picture:
Each of these roles and more enrich my life and teach me so much.
After the Chicago Marathon, I was hooked. I wanted to keep running marathons, and so did Darcy. With Sam being a toddler, we decided to each run different ones the next year. Darcy ran the Des Moines Marathon and I ran the WhistleStop in Ashland, WI.
My sister Zita, recovered from treatment and moving on from her cancer diagnosis, set her sights on finishing this one. Her prognosis was good, and the rest of the sisters went about doing the follow-up we felt we needed to do. I had had a baseline mammogram at 35, before I got pregnant. Now, I would do a yearly mammogram and I also got better at self-exams. Breast cancer was now a part of our family history, but so is running.
My sister Ruth also decided to join us there for her second one, and two friends and high school classmates, Beth and Melissa, signed on as well. Tom, the husband of Zita's friend Sue, ran too. My sister Aileen ran the half-marathon, and my sister Leonice and sister-in-law Annie came along to cheer us on. So there was a good-sized contingent that headed to northern Wisconsin that October.
It was a chilly fall morning as we got bussed to the starting line. We ran back to town on paved trail along an abandoned rail line. The conditions were good and the course was flat. It seemed like it took forever to get back to town, but I knew I could do it. I was pleased with my finishing time, and then set my sights on cheering on the others who were yet to come in. Melissa and Beth had done some training together, and it was fun to see them achieve this goal. It's a wonderful feeling you only get when you are done.
Zita had many who knew her cheering her on at various points along the route, and by the time she crossed the finish line, she also had many strangers cheering her on. It was a special moment to see her come across that line, a year after finishing up her active treatment. I could only imagine what was going through her mind and heart. The local newspaper captured this picture:
That's her daughter and Beth's daughter ready for some high fives. It meant so much to me then to have the reassurance that she was healthy again and getting on with life. But cancer wasn't done with us yet. It was just getting started.
That October day though, back in 2005, we savored the experience and the fact that we had all met our goals by finishing what we had set out to do. We relished our time together and our individual journeys as well.
This was a rich experience all around - the Ashland trip and running. You did it Zita and others did it-yeah for all. Thanks Lisa!
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