Worth Repeating: #17, a Marathon, and a Hat

Today I am grateful for family, friends, and the joy that running brings me.

A special thanks to my friend Steve Foran and the conversation we shared yesterday. Thank you for being a faithful blog reader Steve and for reaching so many, including me, with your efforts to share what living gratefully can do in the workplace and beyond.

The points of clarity that started with "All any of us have is today" also ends there. It is worth repeating. Point #1 and Point #17 are the same. I am also repeating the Sioux Falls Marathon, after running it in 2011, finishing side by side with my husband Darcy in the city where we got married and lived for two years before moving to Minnesota.

I will be wearing the shirt I earned at the finish in 2011, a pink bracelet I have been wearing the last few months that says "I Choose Hope" on it, and the hat in the pictures below. My sisters and my nieces (Mary Jo's daughters) have the same bracelet. The words have faded. Like Mary Jo's breath faded and ended. But she will be inspiring me in many ways as I cover those 26.2 miles.

The hat is one that Mary Jo sent to me when I was diagnosed with BC in 2008. It is well-worn and carries the evidence of many runs over many years. I have worn it on all of my long training runs this summer and I will don it Sunday morning. It, the energy and motivation it holds, and the grief.

The first picture is at our dad's gravesite. It was taken on June 16, 2019, Father's Day and the day Mary Jo died. The second picture was taken on July 3. Below is a paragraph from the eulogy that I wrote and read at Mary Jo's service. I have come across threads in various places these last months, and I think of Mary Jo. It brings me comfort and a smile. Her presence is here. 

The thread on my hat in the second picture accompanied me on a 14-mile run and I didn't know it until after I took the hat off at the end of the run. Mary Jo wasn't one to run much, but she joined me that day like she will join me on Sunday. 

Threads. Mary Jo sewed plenty of hems and cuffs, but she also threaded her love into the hearts of so many. That is what brings us all here today. Mary Jo is an important thread in the fabric of our lives. She will always be present in our hearts. We will miss her laugh, her random sing-alongs, her smile, her thrift store finds, her banana bread, and so much more. As a daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, friend, and co-worker, our sister was big-hearted.

We honor the way she so easily found joy and also her tremendous courage in the face of the awful and devastating disease of metastatic breast cancer.

My 16 previous marathons have all been run with at least one sister's cancer on my mind and in my prayers, stride by stride. Zita was diagnosed in 2004 and Leonice in 2017. Last year, there were three sisters and many others on my mind.  I was always running to honor one, two or three sisters, among many others. 

This is a sad first. I am running in memory of Mary Jo this year. 

You are with me Mary Jo. You will be with me for the easy miles and the toughest strides too. 

See you back here early next week. In the meantime, pause and pay attention to the strides and miles you will be covering.  "All any of us have is today."