Falling Through

When Amy and I spoke this morning, she told me Charlie was having his 4th grade picture taken at school. Amy paid him a quarter to wear a "fancy shirt" , blue and white gingham. I stuck a quarter in an envelope and mailed it to him when I hung up the phone. When he got home from school and I called him, I asked him what else he wore for his school picture...he said "plaid shorts. " I love it. gingham and plaid. the best. I can't wait to see the picture.
I am going to the "Heartworks House" everyday after I drop Mary off at pre-school. I walk in, take a deep breath, light some candles and look around in a state of overwhelming amazement, gratitude and a bit of anxiety at all the stories, all the families we are reaching out to. Cancer, cancer, cancer seems to be everywhere...On my street, in my friendships and at the Heartworks House. And along with the cancer, there is love, love, love, hope, hope, hope, faith, faith, faith, love, love, love, fear, fear, fear, awakenings, awakenings, awakenings, suffication, suffication, suffication, grace, grace, grace.
My favorite priest and author, Richard Rohr, says "Fall through your life situation, into your life" what this means to me is that the "situation" of our lives right now, is not our real life. Our real life is with God, in the lessons, and growth and healing...the "situation" is just showing up to help us come back to Him. I pray for this each day...to "fall through" the drama, the pettiness, the distractions of everyday life into the real life of service, my family and love. My daily phone calls to Amy remind me that nothing as we know it today will stay the same. Everything changes all the time. Purhaps this is the greatest human struggle...the near impossible ability to accept that nothing is permanent. It all seems so REAL...doesn't it? What is real is love. What is permanent is love. What I want most in my life- to give and recieve, is love. My prayer for Charlie on his Carebridge prayer page was that he feels the love we all have for him as he falls asleep tonight. It is my prayer for all of us. I picture his sweet little head, half full of blond curls resting on his pillow, with his blue and white gingham shirt crumpled up in a ball on the floor and I pray he falls through this dignosis into the love that is so abundant in his life.

Peggy's Reflection

Below is a story that my friend Peggy sent to me (she posted it on Facebook but I'm not on Facebook) It ties together 9/11, Heartworks and the power of one small gesture. I remember every bit of the stories she tells...the carnarion in 6th grade, the note I wrote her, the walks, the day she shared her fear with me about her father. A few years ago she came to a heartworks meeting in Bernardsville (a while before she was part of starting a group in another part of Jersey) and she started to tell the group how we reconnected because of a note I wrote her during a dark time in her life, and she reaches in her bag and pulled out the note...I couldnt believe she still had it after all these years- but she made the point that one small gesture brought with it so many healing lessons... (for both of us) and she encouraged the women in the room to always move forward with the one small gesture that speaks to them...Here is what my friend Peggy DeLong wrote:

Reflections on the Past

I spent much of yesterday reflecting on my past and events that have led to where I am today. I was struck by how lives cross, coincidences occur, and you sometimes don’t know the significance until years later, or decades later.

Being that it was the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, I was thinking about how Heartworks got started. My dear friend from childhood, Megan Sullivan McDowell, founded Heartworks after she witnessed the outpouring of support for the families who lost loved ones on that tragic day. Her sister’s husband, John Farrell, died that day. Megan had the opportunity to witness and experience the support from all over the world provided to her sister and family. In Megan’s own words: “I cannot remember when it exactly was. But I can clearly remember saying to myself that when we have our feet solidly on the ground again, I would spend the rest of my life paying forward all the kindness shown to my family. My silent appreciation needed to be said out loud, in a way that would benefit others as it had my sister.” Megan then founded Heartworks, an Acts of Kindness group. Just this month, they opened Heartworks House in Bernardsville.
Megan and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. I was a year ahead of her in school. Back then in elementary school, it was unusual to be close with girls who were not in your own grade just because there were not many opportunities for interaction. But there was something about two girls in particular, Megan Sullivan and Amy Michalowski. I remember attending their sixth grade graduation and giving them carnations, and feeling very special that I was their “older” friend. Another friend of Megan's, who was also my friend in high school, Lisa Kertesz Kelly, is the leader of Heartworks of Vermont.  I find it interesting that 30 years later, the four of us are involved with Heartworks in different states, Megan as founder and leader of the Bernardsville group, Amy as the leader of a group in Rhode Island, Lisa as the leader in Vermont, and me as co-founder of the Long Valley chapter, along with Jen DeSimone, who serves as our leader.  As little girls, we had no idea how our lives would later be connected.
Megan has been doing “heartworks” or acts of kindness long before she had a formal name for it, just in the way she was, and the way she reached out to others. My fiance passed away on 10/11/94 after a seven month valiant fight with cancer. By a cruel twist of fate, all of my closest friends moved away that August, September, or October of 1994. Nancy moved to Connecticut, Kristen moved to Arizona, Ali moved to Virginia, Amy moved to California, Jennifer moved to Colorado, Jeriann was already in Georgia, and Jody, Larry, and the band moved to Nashville. Everyone was moving on with their lives for graduate school, jobs, and relationships, and I was stuck in my grief without my core support, other than my dear family. Then one day I received a card in the mail from Megan. We had lost touch for years, maybe even ten years. In the bottom corner of the card in tiny numbers, she gave me her phone number, and she let me know that she was back in Bernardsville. I called her, and then began our regular walks, which sustained me through my darkest time.
I remember one walk in particular. We were walking up the steep part of Rolling Hill Road, coming from Seney Drive. I told Megan that I could not even think about or bear another loss, and that I often worried about my father’s health. The next day, my father died. He spent most of the day before getting ready for his first day of skiing. He was taking an early season trip to Vermont. He took out all of his equipment and wore his ski boots around the house most of the day. He even proudly showed me how he fixed the rip in his ski pants with duct tape, and we talked about our upcoming trip to Lake Tahoe (Squaw Valley) to visit my brother David. My father died on a chairlift while skiing at Okemo Mountain in Vermont on 11/21/94. The ski patrol were able to tell us that they had seen him skiing, so we were comforted that at least he got some good runs in. He had an unusual and unforgettable way of skiing that exuded happiness. Skiing casually with his arms out, listening to his tunes. I don’t think he was in his multi-colored clown wig that day.
While this was so tragic and such a blow to me and my family, who had just lost my fiance six weeks earlier, I was comforted by some thoughts my father shared with me just two weeks before. My father was very close to my fiance, and his death really took a toll on him. He was so heartbroken to lose his future son-in-law, and to see me in so much pain. We talked a lot about death after Scott died, and one of the things my father said was, "If I have it my way, I'm going to die on a chairlift." He said that is where he felt the most at peace and the closest to God, breathing in the cool mountain air. Well, two weeks later after he said that, he died alone on a chairlift from a sudden heart attack. Although way too young, he died exactly the way he wanted to. Knowing this was such a comfort to me and my family. It does not get any better than that. Beautiful.
Once again, Megan was there for me. And my friends all flew back home again from their various locations for my father’s funeral, after just being there six weeks before for my fiance’s funeral. And then they all left. Megan was around for a little while, and then she too left, moving to Colorado. But she left me with the strength I needed to get through the worst part. And then the next ski season came around, and I met my now husband. Actually, the ski season had ended, but it was with my ski buddies at a mountain biking party that I met John.
Now, meeting him through my ski friend is not strange, as many of my friends met their husbands through skiing. But it is strange that John and I skied the same mountains every weekend since we were in grade school, but we never crossed paths. We had several friends in common, and on one of our first dates, he asked why HIS friends were in MY 15 year old photo album! As Kristen put in her wedding toast to us, “The most remarkable aspect of your union with Peggy is that you unwittingly skied the same mountain since childhood, not knowing that each trip down the slope, each turn or mogul negotiated, was bringing you closer to each other.” Although he did not have the opportunity to meet my father through me, John knew my father before he even met me. He knew him as the crazy man who skied at Jack Frost on Wednesdays in a multi-colored clown wig, and who said hello and talked to everyone.
As I ran yesterday, I was also thinking about how many lives have been touched since Megan founded Heartworks. Not only through the original Bernardsville group, but also the Vermont group, Rhode Island group, Long Valley group, and kids’ group in Florida. What I love about Heartworks is reaching out and connecting with other people.
One particular situation came to mind. Last year, my town unexpectedly lost a loved member of the community, a man I did not know. Heartworks members each chose a month to reach out to the family, which included that man’s wife, his daughter, and his son. When it was my turn, I was at a loss as to how to reach out. One of the things I decided upon was to give the son a lego set for his age. I felt uncomfortable about delivering a gift to strangers who were still in the midst of their grief, and I procrastinated dropping off the gifts long after I purchased them. As I drove down the driveway to the house, my heart was pounding. I went to the front door and rang the bell. The wife was not home, but I left the package with her mother. I only left my first and last name, and that the gift was from Heartworks.
A couple days later, I was at home and the doorbell rang. An unrecognizable woman was at my door, and I thought it was another Jehovah’s witness. I opened the door, and she asked me if I was Peggy. I thought to myself, “Oh no! She even knows my name!” Then she told me her name, and the two of us immediately embraced. She took the time to track down my address to thank me in person for the gifts that I gave her family. She stated that the gift for her son arrived on her son’s birthday. I guess there was a special reason for my procrastination. She also said that the only thing that her son wanted for his birthday was a lego set, and her son thought that the gift was a gift from his father sent from heaven through me. Coincidence, I think not. I love the saying, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
So today, I thank Megan for re-entering my life and providing me with the support and strength that I needed after the deaths of my fiance and my father. I also thank her for starting Heartworks and bringing Heartworks into my life. I thank Jen DeSimone for leading Heartworks of Long Valley. I thank my father for his goofiness and teaching me what is important in life. I thank my mother for continuing to be my rock in my adult life. I thank God for bringing John into my life. I thank God for my three beautiful children. I thank John for creating with me the family and life I always dreamed of having.

The Meaning of God's Grace

This time 10 years ago, my Madison was 2 years old and came home from my friend's house in her friend Adin's pj's with trucks all over them. She had gone there with my friend when I lost feeling in my hands earlier in the day. I knew I could not focus on Madison, watch the news, email frantically to friends on the East Coast about what floors people were getting out from, cry, sit with Eddie, call home every 5 minutes all at once. Today I watched her as an almost 12 year old...running around laughing with her cousins in a hooded sweatshirt at our family picnic and this day 10 years ago seemed like it happened in another lifetime. Or just yesterday.

The service this morning was filled with families, re-married widows, grown kids and aging parents. The passage of time was apparent, and the empty space where my Dad would be standing felt substantial this year. By the time we recieved Communion, a ton of texts had come through from old friends and new ones waking up to thoughts of my family- I could not have felt more loved today.

Heartworks House had a full day vigil of all the names of the victims that we hand wrote this week and hung on the walls. United States Veterans came for two ceremonies and when I walked Mr.Burkholder through the office space (94 years old, Vietnam, Korea and WWII Veteran) it occured to me that I have no void in my life right now. Heartworks, and the ability to reach out to others has healed any lingering emptiness that used to sneak up on me, especially when the girls were young and we would be home all day and I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing with myself. Our new space for Heartworks is awesome...it is ours. It is going to allow us to do whatever we can for people who need us with very little restriction.

Maryanne's kids are all doing well. Maryanne laughed alot today. We spent the day with John's sister Maureen and her husband and his brother Jim and his family- it was so good to be with them. My brother was here from Chicago, all Mare's kids were home too. We were all together... loving John and it was beautiful.
Father Pete said something I loved in his homily today at the Shrine-
"We do not need to solve the mystery of evil to find our way into the magnificent meaning of God's grace."
Today, Heartworks house was filled people...
We were together as a family....
Charlie is happy at school and his BFF Kieran is in his class...
God's grace is magnificant and evil had no hand on us today.

September 11, 2011

I am up...I can't sleep...I keep watching the footage on TV...why? I don't know. Tomorrow morning I will be at a service with about 300 other 9/11 family members at St. Joseph's Shrine in Stirling, NJ. I have been asked to speak, and below is what I am going to say. We are bringing 70 candles with us- they will be lit by each family and placed up on the alter of this beautiful, outdoor memorial. We will be standing under a bell tower that was created out of two steel beams from each of the towers. It is the same place we have been every September 11th for 10 years. My father stood there with us for 4 of these past 10 years. I feel his presence and his absense every year. The candles will be lit and prayed over and then given out to families in need of hope this year by family members gathered at the Shrine who will take them home, and Heartworks will give away the rest this upcoming year.

Heartworks is having a Day of Remebrance at our new home tomorrow.. (we had our first INCREDIBLE meeting there on Tuesday) .Heartworkers  have spent the week  hand writing the names of every victim and have hung them each on the walls of the meetiing room. I feel great anticipation going to sleep...on one level John is no more honored tomorrow than any other day by my family...but there is something about being surrounded by hundreds of other 9/11 family members that is remarkable.
Tonight I am grateful to be together with my family- my brother is in from Chicago. Maryanne oldest kids Kaitlin and Patrick came home from college and John's memory filled my house tonight as we ate pizza together. Here's the thing...He's "gone" but he's never "gone". He is always right here with us, for pizza, at the beach or whatever else we are doing. Always and All Ways.
Good Night.

Reflection Speech September 11, 2011 at Morning Service, St. Joseph's Shrine Stirling, NJ

My name is Megan McDowell. I am the sister of Maryanne Farrell who lives in Basking Ridge. Her high school sweetheart and love of her life is John Farrell who worked for Sandler Oneill in the South Tower. He is the father of Kaitlin, Patrick, Colin and Molly. He is the brother of Jim, Kathleen, Maureen, Michael and Nancy. He is the son of Mike and Dolores.

I was struggling with what I could possibly say to all of you today...There is no magic formula for grief- there is no cure- there is simply life and God and grace. Missing someone you love is the journey of moving through the cruxifiction of our own lives into a sense of resurrection. I have found that one of the only things that helps with my own grief, over John and other losses my family has had since 9/11 is to use what I have been through to help and serve others.

In 2004 I started a non profit acts of Kindness group called Heartworks to pay forward the kindness that sustained my sisters family, my own family and all of us gathered here for the weeks, months a and years since september 2001. Our group of women, recreate, on a daily basis,  the meal deliveries the fundraising, the errands and anything else that needs to be done for a family in crisis.  In the past 7 years Heartworks have helped me to heal my own live, and Ive watched it do the same for my mother and my sisters.

The term “I understand” is used so often in response to grief- people say it, even though they don’t understand- people say it when they couldn’t possibly understand because they have not been through a close loss- but this group, all of you standing here today- when you are sitting with someone who’s life has been shattered, you do understand

The shock of life as you knew it being over in a split second...“you understand”

The anguish of wanting to turn back the clock to the day before the tragedy... "you understand”

The paralyzing physical sensations of grief ...“you understand”

The fear of those rising feelings of yearning...  "you understand”

The incomprehensible realization of the loss...  "you undetstand”

And so-  because of this, all of you standing here have the ability to bring God grace to the planet, into someone’s kitchen, in a way that much of the population can not do - it is uniquely yours- whether it is the loss of your spouse, your child, your parent, or maybe you are like me- someone who has your immediate family all present but have been the witness to your extended family breaking and suffering and transforming into a new shape- When you sit with someone who is grieving you have so much to offer that again, is uniquely yours-

You are living proof to them that their heart will keep beating , even though the heart of the person they love has stopped

You can ensure them that memories live on and that the love never fades- not even for a moment, in no way , shape or form does your love diminish…in fact, it grows deeper

You can tell them that even though they may not love God this very moment, what is important is that they stay open to receiving God’s love

You can share with them the big and little things you did each day to get through till the next and how the shadows of fear shift form over time

You can show them that their family is still a family, that some members are here in body and that some are here in our hearts, but your family is your family, is your family, is your family. No matter what.

Even though you did not ask to be a part of the events of 9/11- even though you did not want this experience, this loss- it is a part of your life story just as it is part of the person you love’s story- take it to someone else and sit with them, in their kitchen, on their September 11^th, when their life changes unexpectedly and permanently. It may not be in the form of terrorism. It may be showing up for them as a diagnosis , or a car accident or a heartattack- but the feelings, the sensations of death are the same if not extraordinarily similar- loss is loss, grief is grief regardless of the day or the way or the details of the story. You can sit with someone in a way perhaps noone else can because of the uniqueness of your story and what you have lived through. Doing this will heal your own wounds as well. I promise you this.

So one way to do this is to please take a candle. In a moment we will all pray over them- prayer feels important to do because there are soldiers right now, away from their families, fighting to insure that we can  gather  here this morning- from all different religions and beliefs,  and stand together in prayer. Public prayer is not happening in NYC in the very spot where prayer was abundant 10 years ago- so lets make sure we do it here at St. Josephs

Please put your hands up to these candles, and then anyone who wants to,  can take a candle home to pass on to someone, as a way of saying you understand and they are not alone. All the candles that remain, Heartworks  will passe on to the hundreds of grieving families that we will meet this year.

Please God we ask to be opened to the miracle of your healing grace

We pray that the emptiness we experience is filled by you

We pray for the courage to reach out into a broken world, from a place of our own brokenness

We ask for gentle, continuous memories of the person we love

And for those too young to have memories, we pray that they come to understand how much they are loved

We pray for all families in the upcoming year who will experience struggle, that they find You in the darkest of times

We ask for all people who are grieving to become new each day through knowing You.

AMEN

Thank You Thank You Thank You

I don't know why I haven't written in a week or so...last week was such an amazing week. I attended two Heartworks meetings, one in Long Valley, NJ and then myself and two other Heartworkers, Holly and Marianne drove up to Barrington, Rhode Island to facilitate Amy's group and see Charlie during his second week of treatments. By the way, he is running around like a mad man and spends more time in hockey and lacrosse gear than any boy I have ever met. While Amy is taking care of Charlie and his brothers, her friends are going to step up and run Heartworks until she feels ready to step back into her role as leader. Amy started her group 4 years ago and it was an incredible experience to witness the 37 women who showed up for the meeting- their love for Amy's familiy was almost palpable and for as much as I say I don't get nervous leading meetings, I was nervous for this one. To guide this group of women through the process of what it means to be in Heartworks, just felt so urgent now, given that Amy is actually living through a child undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. The most amazing part of the night was that by the time we lit the prayer candles, not even half way through the meeting, I felt as if I had known this circle of women my entire life. This is what happens when the walls are knocked down and women get real with themsleves and each other. We stayed until 1:00 in the morning and I got to hear Amy's laugh and when I asked her if there was any part of the meeting she wanted to participate in or lead, she said "The gratitude exercise". And so there she was, a mother living out her worst nightmare... leading a mantra of  "THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU" - words can not express the feeling in that room.
Inbetween these two meetings we sent our friend Katie Meyler back to Liberia to put 100 more girls in school thanks to her fundraising efforts while she was home. Monday night my girls and I spent time with my neighbor's, the Hoyt family, selling lemonade to raise money for pediatric cancer research. They held this lemonade stand on the night bofore they left for Boston for 5 year old Campbell to start 6 months of treatment there for the tumor in her brain. I also took my girls to the pool, had a date with my husband, hung out with my mom and sisters and friends. It was a full week...full of challenges, love, inspiration, fear, faith and hope. I am leaving in the morning to go back to see Chalie again and I know I am blessed to have access to such love in my life. My life is full and I am grateful. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

Visiting the Past

Last night I drove 2 miles to a restaraunt in my town and walked up a set of stairs and straight into the past. Old friends, childhood companians, stood in front of me with legal glasses of wine in their hands and a few wrinkles on their faces (mine too). As I made my way around the room at this memorial dinner for Ranjan Sinha, a high school classmate who recently passed away, what I noticed most is that noone's eyes have changed.
styles, yes
body types, yes
 hair color, yes
 eyes, no.
 I saw my old friend Tracey...one of my BFFs from childhood. It was one of those homecomings...one of those "where have you been for 25 years and how have we not spoken? What is your husband's name? Are you happy? do you work? Do you love what you do? Can you sit for a hundred years and catch me up? When did you meet him? What flowers did you have at your wedding? Do you drink diet Coke, I do, and I wish I could stop, what are your friends like? Do you remember this, that and the other thing??? I love you even though we haven't spoken in spoken in forever"

Our friend Patty wasn't there from Florida and we missed her...My old friend Sandy wasn't there either but we spoke about both and several others that couldn't make the trip. We ate dinner, caught up and watched a slide show of Ranjan running around different tracks all over the East Coast. The sighs were loud and authentic when candid pictures appeared of coaches Mark Wetmore and Ed Mather sitting at the Penn Relays or on the track at Bernards High School. Most of these shots caught them in the middle of a lecture, and I knew that even the photographer was changed by what was being said as he or she was taking the picture.
Stories were shared about my father...how he helped people through hard times, how he would sit at "the wall " at the high school and say "What you are experiencing you here, today, will affect you for the rest of your life and you will always remember it." And I witnessed over and over again how right he was. I pictured him there in the room with us, in a tie and jacket, with a glass of water in his hand looking around, smiling and nodding his head so thrilled to see the runners gathered there. How proud he would have been of everyone...not because of any business titles or so called successes....but because we showed up 25 years later and cried and hugged each other and were present with the glories and regrets of the past.

When I saw the lack of ego in this group, the lack of needing to show off or be something other than we are...I thought of so many people that I have met  in my adult life that are so imprisoned by their image and what they want others to think of them, that it is difficult  to get to know who they actually are. It felt to me, that last night, we all showed up as we are...fit, not-that fit anymore, married, divorced, single, "successful", struggling, happy, depressed, satisfied, craving more, better off, less off than we were in the last time we saw each other in the mid eighties. And I know that the truth is that all of us are a little bit of all of these things. I went the whole night pretty much not knowing what anyone does for a living. I did not talk to one person about the car they drive or where they vacation, what school their children go to or what their job title is. This is rare for a cocktail party in my town and I had a quiet smile on my face even through the sad parts of the evening. Because every person there was so beautiful in my eyes. I held hands longer than I would normally do, hugged tighter and sat closer to those around me. It was a night of authentic (there's that word again) relationships, even with the people I never hung out with much in high school. I don't know if this was about Ranjan's death or something else. Death, illness and struggle, as resistant to these things as we are, seem to be what allows human beings to show up "uncovered" in a way that nothing else does. I can not help but think that this is part of the plan. That it is the struggles, the losses that brings us to crave a connection to God and other people in a way the easy phases of life don't enable us to do.

We met this morning at "the wall" at BHS and we had bagels and some of us went for a run...the rest of us took pictures of those who ran :). It is safe to say, because I live around the corner in the house I grew up in, that I drive past the high school every day. And every day I think about that wall and the ghosts that gathered there all those years ago to stretch and talk and run. Not only run from the wall, but perhaps from all the things that were happening in our young lives that we probably didn't know how to talk about. But last night, as teammates remembered Ranjan, they spoke about their the isolation they felt during those years, how they felt like an outsider and Ranjan made things easier for them during high school. I know he was brillant, I know he was fast, I know he was a hottie...but at the end of my life, I don't know if there would be a better compliment, a better expression I would want to represent my life, than I was the type of person who made someone's life easier while they were in high school. This was a theme in remembering Ranjan Sinha.
When I drive by the high school tomorrow morning on the way to the grocery store, the ghosts will be a little more alive for me, maybe a little slower than they used to be..but perfect all the same. Thanks for a great weekend.

Transformation Make Your Home in Me by Amy Ames

The words I have not been able to type about my 9 year old Godson's tumor are Malignant Glioma. Charlie's type of brain cancer is very rare. His mother, my BFF Amy, is the youngest of 7 kids. I think her oldest sibling Sue must be 53 by now. This family has never experienced a trauma before. They have been blessed by a lack of car accidents, illness and tragedy. I tell you this because I want to give you a reference for the entry below. Amy started her own Heartworks group in Barrington, RI four years ago. She has dedicated her life to reaching out to families that expereince things that she has not, until now,  gone through in her own life. Amy has a gift of being present for you in crisis, even though she has not been there herself.

On April 23rd she posted the following article on her blog. She wrote it because she had heard of a woman in town getting a cancer diagnosis. It was Easter week and she did not want to write about "fluff" so she said a prayer to give her some clarity about what was happening for this woman she had just heard about. She called me shortly after she posted it saying "I'm such an idiot!! Now everyone thinks I have cancer!! I was writing it from the perspective of the body, the universal body, not my own!" and we laughed hysterically that these ideas and words just came to her and so she wrote them, posted them and never explained the "why" or that it was not about her. Life in her house this past Easter was good, and she knew it. Amy has the awareness to be grateful for "ordinary days" and she was.

Then on May 18th they were woken up in the middle of night by Charlie having  a seizure and falling down the stairs. Two weeks later they removed  a tumor from his brain. On June 24th Amy and Garrett got a phone call that the tumor is malignant and a year of treatment is necessary...so you can call the article below Mother's Intuition, you could call it crazy coincidence. I believe, Amy believes, it was God giving her an understanding of what was growing in Charlie's brain at the time that she wrote this. She just didn't know it yet. I post this today because he started a radiation on Monday and those of us who love him are requesting that everytime you think about Charlie, please turn it into a prayer. The following is an explanation of how his mother viewed his tumor before it was even discovered and we must all follow in praying for a miracle of healthy cells to grow and grow in little Charlie's brain. Please read below and pass it on to anyone you know living with cancer. We believe these words to be true, and Amy was the vehicle through which they were delivered.

Transformation Make Your Home In Me

A prayer for the darkness of a diagnosis.

Little spot, I heard you were here. I saw you there on the white screen. You are in me, but not me.  I don’t know you, like I know the backs of my hands or every line on my face.

They say you are a part of me now and that you have made yourself known. The kids are crying, worried, losing sleep.   Your hearty handshake of "hello" has not loosened its grip on my stomach.  And my breath! My breath is heavy.  Is that because you've already made yourself known to the rest of me? Trying to show all parts, who's the boss?
I don't know you but you are a part of me now. Like an uninvited guest barging your way into my daily affairs.  Appointments, white shoes, white coats.  Tests, tests and more tests. Waiting, waiting and more waiting. The only difference today from yesterday is a few syllables a tongue mixed with an exhale that uttered your name.
I feel fine, I feel fine. Perhaps you existed on the slide before the shutter closed? An 8.2 millimeter smudge? There must be some sort of mix-up.  I feel fine. I feel fine.
Where did you come from? The air in which I breathe?  The food I swallowed?  A hundred inconveniences? A lifetime of angry frustration?  Will I ever know?
They say you will grow. They say you might spread.  They need to figure you out. I need to figure you out.
And when I look, you are so small!  And I am so great! I am so much more than 8.2mm.  A daughter, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a teacher, a nurse, a friend.  With so much love yet to give.  So much more of life to live.
So now you are in me and a part of me, a part of my cellular makeup that has been wounded. Like a cut on my leg, or a bruise on my arm,  I will nurse you back to health. That's what I do, that's who I am.
I will care for you.  Every cell will care for you. There are enough of them to do so. They shall dance around you.
Will you let us in? Will our love and our nurturing be enough to transform your attacking nature?
Let us walk this road of uncertainty together at least. Let us resist our need for answers.  Let us breathe life in and let love out.  Every moment of every day. Because you are in me and now a part of me.
Transformation make your home in me.

Be Not Afraid

So we were all on the beach watching the fireworks tonight-and all of a sudden Eddie says "shhhh, Megan...listen" and I hear female voices singing "Be Not Afraid" on the beach. I could hardly believe it, since I have been singing this very song over and over and over again in my head since I blogged about it on Sunday. I sang it when I felt sick going to bed last night, again in the middle of the night when I woke up wondering if Amy and Garrett were able to sleep, and a bunch again today at the parade every time I saw a little boy waving a flag and my heart was gripped with fear of what the next year will be like for Charlie. And so we were sitting on the beach and we hear the song being sung...so of course I have to go right over to the group of women- they are just like me and my friends, sitting having their wine and wanted to sing "Be Not Afraid"- so then I tell them about Charlie, about my BFF Amy and they all take out thier phones to type "Charlie Ames" on their memo pad so they can pray for him....God is present... Amy's brother Matt emailed me last week that "God knows Charlie's name"... I know this is true- I got my weekend theme song sang to me by a group of random women on the beach...of course God would show himself to me in this way, so that I can blog it to you and you know as well to not be afraid, He goes before you always....amazing.

July 4, 2011

I am sitting at the beach, as I have done for the past ten 4th of Julys... I am thinking about Amy and Garrett being on a deck on Cape Cod, in a similar scene, hanging out with Garrett's family, having a drink on a beautiful summer night. But this years holiday falls 7 days before they start a year of chemotherapy and radiation for Charlie....hard to grasp this reality with the sounds of fireworks going off over the bay and nieces and nephews hula hooping and running around with sparklers. I think about Amy's 6 siblings and parents, Garrett's parents, Amy and Garrett's college and high school friends, Their Barrington friends, all in different areas of the country, having a drink on a deck somewhere and wondering why  the beer they are drinking tastes different than last year's. It is because this 4th of July, if you love Charlie Ames, everything is different.

Leaving for the Beach, Still Not Writing...

I am leaving to go to the beach for a few days. I know I haven't written since the last update about Charlie...I just haven't been able to. I will write again when I get back from the beach. For now let me say that I am so grateful to God for the grace to carry us through the worst of things. "Be not afraid, I go before you always" I believe this, I know Amy believes this and I pray that her human heart can stay open enough to feel this truth every moment, as Charlie starts a year of chemotherapy and radiation of July 11th. I love my friend. I love my Godson. That's all for now.

Charlie

Well, we got test results back today about Charlie's tumor...can't even write the words, even though his mother was forced to write them to me. Tonight I ask for prayers and miracles of healing. My friend has a long year ahead of her...the word cancer is now a part of her family's  life...I thought I was a grateful person...I thought I knew life was fleeting... but moments have slipped by that I want back. I want it to be last summer, sitting on Amy's patio drinking cold beers and Pino Gregio. I want to be back at Peabody Beach and changing our kids in the back of the van on our way to Polo. I want us all to be eating pizza without the word cancer being a part of the meal. I want alot of things right now that this time last year just seemed par for the course, family tradition, a part of an  "ordinary vacation" with the Ames'. Tonight I would give up anything to have these things again. So many of our life's moments show up as ordinary and they are anything but. We just don't know this until they are gone.

Campbell's Rainbows

I know this is such a cheesy name for this post...but there is just no way around it. Last week, on the last day of school here in Bernardsville my friends were driving their five year old daughter Campbell home from Boston's Children's Hospital where she had a tumor removed from the base of her spine. (they actually overlapped with Charlie while they were there for a check up).  An email went out to Heartworkers that we needed to have rainbows ready for Campbell when she got home and most Heartworkers knew why...

Almost 2 years ago Campbell needed emergency brain surgery after waking up one morning and not being able to walk straight. On the day we knew she was coming home, Heartworks organized welcome home signs to be made and placed all over the front yard for when they drove up the driveway. My friend Geneene and I were over there all morning taping beautiful signs made by friends, neighbors, Heartworkers and Campbell's classmates to be displayed ever so perfectly across the yard. All morning long people dropped off their signs and helped us get everything ready for Campbell. Then we got a call that they would not be home until after dark, so we put up spotlights so Campbell could still see the colorful words written to her "WE LOVE YOU CAMPBELL!!" and "WELCOME HOME CAM!" and "GOD BLESS CAMPBELL"... and then just as we got the entire lawn covered in signs and balloons...it began to rain. I was back at my house by this point and was looking out the window as I began to feel the pit in my stomach grow as it rained and rained and rained all over our welcome home wishes. I started to get annoyed..and the voices in my head were saying "Really God?? Rain on her signs? They are coming home from a totally traumatizing event and we are trying to make just one little piece of it just a little teenie bit better...Really?? Rain? in the dark for the little girl with cancer??" I was really annoyed...and whenever I am really annoyed I always do the same thing- pray. It's the only thing that can get me un-blocked and help me to see clearly through the annoyance. Annoyance is always a sure sign that I am trying to get things to work my way and that I am being short sighted. And even though praying at this point is also super annoying, I did it anyway. I prayed that we are able to let go of the outcome, that Campbell and her family would still feel the love we have for them (even though its all ruined now, you knw, because of the darkness and the rain), and that somehow the effort would still salvagable. Well...as the story goes, Campbell came home in the dark and pouring rain and as she drove up the driveway she started yelling "Look at the rainbows!! Look at the rainbows!!" Yes, the words I was holding onto so tightly smeared across all the poster boards and created "rainbows" for Campbell. What we had all forgotten is that she can't read and so the words were meaningless to her. What she saw was something she understood, something that represents the calm after a storm, something that gives hope and faith in a new day...rainbows. And it could not have been more perfect of an outcome.
So this time when Campbell was coming home from Boston we made sure her lawn was covered in rainbows.

Waking Larry Sullivan by Ed Grant Jr.

This is a piece written by Ed Grant, Jr. son of Ed Grant, Sports Writer, who my father loved deeply (both Father and Son). He wote this in 2005 and let it be noted that my dad now has 13 grandchildren instead of 10. :) I am profoundly grateful for this story.

Waking Larry Sullivan

            On September 11, 2001, a retired Air Force colonel visiting a friend in California was woken by news of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.  His son-in-law, John Farrell, worked for Sandler O’Neill in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.  Per daily routine, John had boarded a New Jersey Transit train at dawn in Basking Ridge, NJ.  The Colonel knew he would have been at his desk as the planes hit. 

            Thus began a trans-continental journey of folkloric dimension.  The Colonel drove a rented car over night to Denver International Airport, arriving early on the morning of September 12.  Joining him there from Boulder, Colorado, were his daughter, Megan, her husband, Edward McDowell, and their daughter, one of the colonel’s 10 grandchildren shared with Maureen, his wife of 44 years. 

            Friends will agree that if anyone could have procured a plane -- any plane -- back to New Jersey on that day, it would have been The Colonel.  But that was beyond even his legendary serendipitous powers.  The one and only alternative was to drive.  Now knowing that John Farrell, father of four, was indeed one of the thousands who did not return home the previous day, The Colonel did what his military training, Celtic temperament, and Catholic (both small and large “C”) sensibilities led him inexorably to do. 

            He forged a plan.  He and Ed would alternately drive, straight through to the Garden State.  But there would be no wallowing in the unspeakable.  Hence, no radios, no restaurants with TVs, not even newspapers at rest stops.  But there would be sustenance, joy, even laughter, throughout the journey.  For 40 hours, minus a couple of catnaps, he played troubadour to this band of grieving souls, regaling with a welter of stories that friends knew in snatches, and that this segment of his family now saw as one unbroken tapestry.  His source was simply his life.  But it was not about him.  Rather, it was about the souls he had met, known, befriended, and loved throughout a remarkable tenure on this earth.  Drawing from the past, his soul was nevertheless focused entirely on the present moment.      

            Col. Laurence Francis Sullivan, USAF (Ret.), crossed to eternal life on June 16, 2005.  Hours earlier, he had given the principal eulogy for his dear friend Edward Mather, the legendary track coach of Bernards (NJ) High School in its glory years of the 1970s and 1980s.  He had largely won a bout with cancer first diagnosed in 2003, but now, his athlete’s body simply gave out, in the form of a pulmonary embolism.  His brief nocturnal struggle awoke his beloved Maureen, who had time to see him smile, and then peacefully close his eyes. 

            If I have ever known of death from a broken heart, Larry’s might be it. 

            Larry Sullivan was simply one of the most remarkable persons I have ever heard of, much less met and counted as a friend.  His death affected so many people so deeply precisely because his life was a constant reminder of the inherent dignity of each human being, a dignity linked to the unique individuality of each person.  His life was a 24/7 rant against the sameness and conformity of “modern” life, against the seemingly-prevailing power of “men with no chests” (C.S. Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”), and against the notion (debunked so well by papal biographer George Weigel) that life is “just one damn thing after another.”  For Larry, life was one ironic, serendipitous, joyous, tragic, contentious, harmonious, Spirit-filled thing after another – quite often simultaneously, as his journey of 9/12/2001 demonstrated.  Come along for a mere glimpse, and see if you do not agree. 

                                          *                              *                              *

            To understand Larry Sullivan, and those who knew him best, requires some understanding of what it means to be a “fan” of track and field.  For complex reasons, this once-solid American spectator sport has become opaque to the masses of sports fans, at least those outside Eugene, Oregon, and, on Penn Relays weekend, Philadelphia.  To be a fan of the sport is not to be confused with mere participation in the galaxy of road races and charity 5Ks and 10Ks held each weekend throughout the country.  Rather, it is to appreciate inherently an excellence in effort, strength, endurance, speed that is not duplicable in any other sport – the fastest NFL tailback would be crushed in the U.S. Junior National Championship 100 meters – and that admits of no compromise.  (Why track no longer fills indoor arenas as it did a generation or two ago is a subject Larry Sullivan could expound upon, but beyond the scope of these reflections.) 

            According to renowned track writer and TV producer Walter Murphy, Larry Sullivan became in the last 30 years of his life most well-connected but least-known persona in the sport.  You can Google his name and discover not a link to the man himself.  Yet, he was directly responsible for the development of the top collegiate cross-country coach in the nation, as well as the 32-year-old coach who may eventually reach that same honor. 

            How did this occur?  In the words of Ed Grant, legendary chronicler of the sport in the state of New Jersey (and, yes, this author’s father), it starts with Larry’s running career itself.  You could listen to Larry throughout an entire meet at Madison Square Garden, an NCAA cross-country championship, or even a 10-hour Saturday at the Penn Relays and not hear a word about his own achievements. 

            But they must have been singular, as Grant reminded his many readers in a personal internet eulogy.   From St. Ann’s High School in Queens – now known as Archbishop Molloy and, under that name, itself known for legendary programs under eventual Georgetown coach Frank Rienzo – he was awarded a scholarship to Arizona State College.  That led to one of the earliest Sullivan legends – drawing upon skills honed during penurious adolescent journeys from Queens to Washington, DC and Newport, Rhode Island, Larry literally hitchhiked the 2500 miles to Tempe, stopping at homes along the way.   

            So modest was he about his days at Arizona State (he often said “I did not go to college; I went to Arizona State”)  that, after his death, his son John told that he had never seen a picture of his father in a Sun Devils singlet – until that is, his wake, where a cache of previously-unknown negatives, over 50 years old, had been developed into fine prints.  John, himself a star both at Bernards HS under Ed Mather, and at Georgetown under Joe Lang, was clearly touched – and amazed – that his father had never shared these pictures with his family.            

            (I got a taste of this modesty myself.  For years he would call and address me as “Counselor” – never revealing that somehow, in between an active pilot’s career, raising four kids, and mentoring countless athletes, he also had earned a law degree.) 

            As for the years after Arizona State, let me put it this way: long before it became common parlance, Larry was the first person I know who answered the “what do you do” question by saying, “if I told you, I would have to kill you.”  Suffice to say that the Air Force, and others in the Government, recognized that behind Larry’s open eyes and smile lay an internal fortitude, a “sense of where he is,” and an ability to focus on the present moment required for the type of covert assignments one does not talk about afterwards.  At Larry’s wake, everyone knew why his remains rested under an American flag, but no one talked about it. 

                                         *                                 *                                   *

            Larry Sullivan’s impact on track and field could be summarized as a perfect amalgam of subsidiarity (“Small is Beautiful,” in Schumacher’s title) and boundless audacity.  After service in Vietnam, Larry left active duty for the Reserves, and migrated first to West Windsor, New Jersey.  Shortly afterwards, though, he moved his family of four children to Bernardsville, one of hundreds of small communities on the patchwork map of the Garden State, and a commuter stop on the leafy Gladstone Branch of Erie-Lackawanna Railroad.  In the 1960s, an iconoclastic, wiry-haired mathematics teacher named Edward Mather began turning out cross-country and distance running teams of unusual cohesion, talent, and, soon enough, consistent achievement. 

            As a runner of medium talent on a competing small school team, I immediately noticed some things about the Bernards teams.  First was the outsized personality of the coach, who always wanted to schedule our team in a dual meet (our school was then chasing the state record for consecutive victories).  Second, and more important, was how the teams ran.  For a small school, Bernards had a lot of runners – and a lot of good ones.  And, like the great Catholic school cross-country powers of that day, they ran in packs, ferocious packs if you were trying to defeat them, seemingly feeding off each other in a way our own team never quite managed.  I was convinced we worked hard, even as hard as they did, but we did not quite grab the brass ring at the end of the season.  Bernards, it seems, always did. 

            Larry Sullivan became an instant presence in this scene.  He had three daughters, and it would be years before girls cross-country and track were well-established; his son John did not enter the Bernards program until 1975.  No matter to Larry.  Behind the scenes, he became an influence every bit as important as the coach, a fixture at “the Wall,” a gathering place on the Bernards campus.  Moreso, he became a mainstay of the legendary Sunday morning long runs that were a staple of the Bernards training program.  And therein lies a tale of Larry Sullivan’s audacity. 

                                         *                                *                             *

            Those of you who run marathons, or love someone who does, know well the routine of the “Saturday (or Sunday) long run,” that weekly slog of 12, 15, 18, or 20 miles, essential for increasing red blood cells and strengthening the mitochondria within those cells, thus training the body to burn fat efficiently over the course of a long-distance race.  The godfather of the weekend long run was Arthur Lydiard, a New Zealander who, along with rival coach Percy Cerruty of Australian, brought antipodean runners to the top of the distance running world in the 1960s and 1970s.  “Training the

Lydiard Way

” became a cult classic among coaches, but not ubiquitous.  Larry, of course, possessed a copy, and passed it along to C. Mark Wetmore, a graduate of Bernards HS and assistant coach under Mather. 

            Not content with passing along the written wisdom of Lydiard, Larry Sullivan went in search of the man.  This was not an easy thing to do.  In Salingeresque fashion, the Kiwi coach, famous for one great book, refrained from public view.  By this time, the early 1970s, Larry was employed by Flying Tigers, doing cargo runs all over the world, and picking up lifelong friends along the journey.  By whatever means, Larry heard that Lydiard was living in a particular area in Germany, but did not have a precise address.  In a scene anticipating “Field of Dreams” by about 15 years, he hopped an FT flight, and on landing inquired of the locals “Wo lebst Herr Lydiard?” After getting the address, he knocked, introduced himself – and a lifelong friendship was born.  Shortly thereafter, Lydiard was a guest in Sullivan home, and was lecturing at Bernards high to the running cognoscenti. 

            Among those cognoscenti was an iconoclastic young coach (and proprietor of the “Mine Mountain Running Department,” a youth running club) named Charles Mark Wetmore.  Wetmore had run at Bernards High School under Edward Mather in the late 1960s and early 1970s, graduated from Rutgers, and then gravitated back home, serving as an assistant coach there and at another school in the region.  One can imagine Lydiard and Wetmore on one of the legendary Bernards 20-milers – often run through the trails of Jockey Hollow, where the Continental Army endured in 1779-1780 the most severe winter of the Revolutionary War. 

            Wetmore’s unique temperament and coaching skills, nurtured under the tutelage of Ed Mather, Larry Sullivan, and the great Lydiard, eventually found their natural home at the University of Colorado.  Since becoming head coach of the Buffaloes in 1995, his men’s teams have won all ten of the Big 12 cross-country championships – and his women have won nine.  The men and women have each posted an NCAA national championship, and 17 Wetmore-coached athletes have represented the United States at the World Cross-Country Championships. 

This year, 13 “running Buffaloes” made the Big 12 All-Academic Team, in majors ranging from Mechanical Engineering to Finance. 

            As documented in Chris Lear’s small masterpiece, “Running With the Buffaloes” (an imbedded writer’s account of the 1998 Wetmore teams), fashioning such success is not simply a matter of pounding out 100-mile weeks at high altitude.  Beyond physical effort, the discipline extends to the bonds of teamwork and friendship, right to the soul of the runner.  (One thinks of Vince Lombardi, and the now-discredited myth that he was merely a relentless taskmaster.)  Ed Mather, for all his idiosyncracies, knew this – I could sense this as a teenager.  Arthur Lydiard, whom I never met, did not attract a cult following for being a martinet.  And Larry Sullivan – well, he was simply one we rightly call a Great Soul.   The young charges of Coach Wetmore may or may not know this entire story, but they imbibe it, thrive on it, and in their time, will pass it on to the runners they coach and the children they raise.

            (Side note:  Chris Lear, chronicler of the Buffaloes, grew up in Bernards, but attended and ran at The Pingry Schoolin in Martinsville, NJ.  There, he was coached by Meg Waldron, who was herself coached by Wetmore at Bernards in the early 1980s in a career that still ranks as among the best in the history of the Garden State.  Years later, Waldron, one of 9 children, gave up a successful sports and fitness business to serve as a missionary in Honduras, and would go on to teach and coach at The Philadelphia School, in Center City. Her middle-school charges won a gold medal at the 2011 Penn Relays).

            So the story is not yet done.  The Buffalo men did win their 10-for-10 Big 12 championship in October 2005.  But it was not easy.  A mere 8 points back was Texas – had three Longhorns each run about 1 second per mile faster, the title would have gone from Boulder to Austin.  Surely, you might be thinking, there cannot be another Larry Sullivan - Bernards link to the Lone Star State.

            But think again: Also present to mourn The Colonel in June 2005 was the Longhorn’s young cross-country coach, Jason Vigilante.  “Vig” hails from Morristown, NJ, a few miles up Route 202 from Bernards; due to personal circumstances and tiny Bernards’ status as a running mecca, he also came under the influence and tutelage of Ed Mather, Mark Wetmore, and – Larry Sullivan.  As Chris Lear told, “[Mid-June] was a tough week for Vig.  Mather was like a father to him, to-wit, his son’s middle name is Mather, and he was really close to Larry  as well.  Together those guys started something really cool.”

            Yes.  Very cool.  Really.  Or as The Colonel might have said: The Pupil (Vig) should not so soon challenge The Master (Wetmore).  

                                                *                                              *                      *

             I drove the four hours to Bernardsville on a perfect June afternoon.  I knew it would be tough, much more for my father than for me, and beyond measure for this family which had already suffered too much untimely death.  I looked forward to seeing members of my own Georgetown track family, for “Sully,” the colonel’s son, is an esteemed leader of that fraternity.  Beyond that, I did not know what to expect.

            All I can say in retrospect is: may your own wake be as much a bit of heaven.  A crucifix. Surrounding the flag-draped coffin, scattered books, those The Colonel loved, from Hemingway to Dostoveksy to Lydiard.  Hand-lettered cards from grandchildren.  Prominently affixed to the bier: a vintage Penn Relays pennant.  In the side room (needed for every minute of this very packed affair) tables of photos.  And, courtesy of producer and statistician Walt Murphy, two televisions playing endless loops of ESPN’s coverage of the 2005 rendition (the 111^th running) of The Colonel’s favorite track and field meet.  (A few years earlier, he had brought two German friends and seasoned athletics fans to Franklin Field for the final weekend of April.  They proclaimed that they had never seen anything like it.)  It was the living epigraph of a Catholic and catholic life.

            I repeated that drive to New Jersey six months after the Colonel’s wake, for the state high school cross-country championships.  Bernards was on the line, as well as the girls’ team from my own high school, and a young relation destined for future greatness at Georgetown University.  It was a fine day – though perhaps not for the young harriers as they climbed out of “The Bowl” at Holmdel State Park.  It was also be the first of these meets in many years where The Colonel was not be around to tease my father, kibbutz with the college coaches seeking their recruits, and handicap the 12 races with his typical flair.       “Best of all, he loved the Fall,” Hemingway wrote, not thinking, perhaps, of the beauty of a pack of 200 runners headed across a grassy plain, gasping to fill their lungs with the dying air of summer. 

                                         *                            *                             *

            The Penn Relays, like any annual gathering joining those who do something out of love, always have their share of poignancy, in memory of “absent friends.”  Few absences were more felt at the 2006 running (the 112^th) than that of The Colonel. 

            The Relays’ signature event, the college men’s distance medley “Championship of America,” went off late Friday afternoon with a balanced and talented field: Arkansas, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Michigan, Providence, Stanford, and – Jason Vigilante’s Texas Longhorns.  With 600 meters left in this 4-man, 10-lap event (1200M, 400M, 800M, and 1600M), all of these schools were in contention.  Then, on the last lap, Arkansas’ Josphat Boit and the Longhorn’s Leo Manzano broke away, Manzano (the 2005 NCAA 1,500 meter champion) holding a slight lead. 

            Somewhere, Larry Sullivan was watching.  Arkansas, since hiring coach John McDonnell (who served a brief stint at my own high school) in 1973, has won over 40 NCAA national team championships in track and cross-country, as well as scores of Championship of America plaques at the Penn Relays.  Texas, a track and field power known more for its sprinters and jumpers, had never won the distance medley at Penn. 

            Manzano held on to win by 3 meters.  The crowd of 40,000-plus cheered the thrilling finish.  But to those who knew “Vig,” and how much he lost in that span of 5 days 10 months earlier, the thrill went far deeper, seared into memory as one of the most poignant moments they will ever witness in sports.  (“Vig” would go on to become the current head coach at the University of Virginia.) 

                                                            *                    *                    *

                        Did you know when Arthur Lydiard passed away?  December 11, 2004, actually, six months to the day before Ed Mather.  He died in Texas, on a lecture tour, at age 87.  He died alone, in a hotel.  Days earlier, he had been an overnight guest in a lively Austin home.  The home, then, of Jason, Amy, and 2-year-old Jack Mather Vigilante. 

                                                *                                              *                      *

                                                                                                            Edward R. Grant is an attorney in Washington DC and remains an active runner and coach.  He is indebted to everyone named in this article.

A Run With My Father

This morning I do what I do every June 16th...I went for a run around the track at Bernards High. This reference will mean nothing to most people, but to a select few, just the mention of this place triggers some of the most influential memories of thier lifetime. If I were to mention "The Wall" there would be even fewer who understood and quietly smile, but if you are smiling at these references, then you also knew my father.The first words I spoke this morning were in prayer to him as I started around the first turn 6 years after the day he died. I do this because of what I did and wrote 24 hours after he died in 2005.  He would have wanted me to find a new ritual, other than waking up on this day each year, crying, eating crap and drinking too much wine. He would want me to to what I do now, which is have a great day with my family, starting where some of the best days of his life were spent...on the track, down from The Wall, at Bernards High School.

Written June 17, 2005.

          As the 24 hr mark of my father’s death appeared on my alarm clock early this morning, the panic that I had been fighting all night became unbearable. I had not been able to sleep- I could not get the images of yesterday morning out of my mind- The 4:30 am phone call from my Mom, the empty streets, my sister’s car speeding past me at the intersection, the gut wrenching screams that came out of my mouth calling in the angels, the spirits of John, Nana, daddy’s parents- to all get to him now, immediately, please. As I opened the front door of 37 Old Army Road a lifetime of memories rushed through me as I noticed the empty stretched in the foyer....Mark Wetmore and my Mother sitting perfectly still on either side of the fireplace.. the EMT descending the stairs... the words he used…”nothing more we could do”… the intense feeling of suffocation. My body not being able to climb up the stairs… the ones I have been climbing to their room since I was 7…the EMTs now having to help me... and then the shell of my father waiting for me in his room with nothing familiar about it.

         So at 4:15 this morning I got out of bed in search of him, his absence was too much to bear, and I knew exactly where to find him.  Not being a fraction of the runner he was, I had to dig deep in the closet for my sneakers before heading to the track.  When I arrived, I spoke out loud to my father and told him I needed new images in my head,  a new “crossing over “ for him, one that I was a part of and one that we did consciously together. 

And so I began to run.

        

         As I listened to the scratching sound of the rain jacket under my arms, I immediately began to feel his presence that I feared the morning before had taken away.

Physically without him for the first time in my life, I did what he always taught me to do in times of despair- Take things one step… and then another…run the race one section at a time- First the turn… just the turn….that’s it Meg, he would say, stay loose, Now the straight away, relax your body, breath evenly, do not look too far ahead…Now the turn again…move your arms, drop your shoulders, loosen your wrists…Widen your stride for the straight away again, you’ve trained for this, we’ve trained for this together…you can do this Meg, keep going.

         Every step banished more and more of the scene at my childhood home the previous morning.  The pounding of the track under my feet brought back memories of a lifetime, and I began to see more clearly the images of a tent set up on the infield for the Bernards Invitational. In my mind’s eye I saw him standing there in his seersucker suit, with Mr. Grant, Mr. Pyrah  and Ed Mather, among others, all holding clipboards and stop watches.  I began to hear the announcements and smell the hotdogs and root beer. I could see the smile on my Dad’s face, the one I loved, because it meant he was in his element, at a track meet.

         As the sickening images that had been haunting me all night dissipated, I replaced them with the best moments of our life together.  And as I did this, lap after lap, the sun rose on a day without him in this world. 

 A day I thought would never come during my sleepless, agonizing night of grief. But the sun did rise, and I ran into a new part of my journey with him. And in my heart he became alive again…lecturing about the great story of he and Ed Mather crossing over into the afterlife within 5 days of each other,-how it couldn’t have been scripted any better…and how now, the end of an era is certainly upon us, but never gone, and that he is as close to me as the next stride I take. I just need to stretch… relax…breath and let it be.

         I pray now for strength and endurance.  I am grateful for the new images to fill my mind as I hopefully fall asleep tonight with the memory of my father and I together, running his final lap, and closing the book on a story to be told by track enthusiasts for years to come.  I have found him again, I feel him as I write this, as I am wishing he was here to edit our story. If I close my eyes and silence my thoughts, I can feel him stroking my hair, saying “That’s right My Meggie Moo, That’s right.”