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.”

        

My Last night with My Dad

Tonight, 6 years ago was the last night I spent with my father. The following is an account of this night, also a Wednesday. I wrote it in the summer of 2005 so that I would remember details I knew I would forget or accidently change over the years. I miss him. I can feel the familiar sadness come over me tonight and I will allow it to wash over me like it does each year as I allow myself to remember our night together in the house I moved into with my family in 2006.

           

June 15, 2005 was Ed Mather’s wake and memorial service.  He has been a really good friend of my dad’s for over 30 years. He was one of the greatest. most original  high school running coaches to ever be. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about 14 years ago and has been in tough shape for the past few years. It was a Wednesday.  I spoke with my several times during the day, but hadn't seen him since he was helping the Mather's plan the services for the past two days. Mark Wetmore, another close running friend, was in town from Colorado staying at the house with my parents and I knew he was surrounded by people who loved him and who loved the sport of Track and Field.

            I had sessions with two clients and then left the office around 7:45 to go to the service which was being held at the high school auditorium. I had missed the wake. I had barely seen my dad in the past few days but would see him at the high school.  Sitting with my sister Jennifer, and childhood friends Kelly Smith and Billy Nann, I listened to the priest talk about life and death. He recited a reading that had to do with God carving us out of the palm of his hand.  This is a concept I have heard for years, but that night it struck me as so beautiful and important. The concept that each person’s life was created purposefully by God, every single one of us, struck me in a new way. People got up and said nice things about Coach Mather.  I looked around the room and thought to myself that it was a bit eerie because the same people would be sharing the same stories if it were at a funneral service for my dad. He was sitting a few rows in front of me and across the aisle to the right, in the 4^th or 5th row, next to Meg Dolan, in front of Meg Waldron, and in back of my Mom. Meg told me later my Dad fell asleep during the service. I don’t know what this means, if anything. I wonder too if he was just sitting with his eyes closed for a long time, which he often did when he was trying to absorb something that was just  to big to do with his eyes open.

            My dad stood up and went to the microphone.  Choking back tears he said that meeting Ed Mather had changed the course of his life and that of his entire family.  The direction of John’s life was altered because of running for Bernards High under the influence of Coach Mather.  He said that his friend Ed had his faults, that all of us have our faults, but that someone once told him that every man deserves to be remembered for his best moment. That was it. Short, poignant- classic Larry Sullivan style. He walked to the back of the auditorium after that, I squeezed his hand as he passed me, and thought about going to stand in the back with him. But I didn’t.

            A few minutes later we were all in the hallway talking. I was seeing people I hadn’t seen in years. My Dad was still inside, he had asked me where Mr. Lampa was, and went to speak to him. I talked to Chris Wilde and then saw Peter Carroll. He said my Dad had told him I was moving. I didn’t understand what he was talking about until my Dad came up and we laughed because he was talking about Eddie and I maybe moving to 37 Old Army Road when my Mom and Dad moved out. I joked that Daddy wanted this so that he would not have to clear all of his crap out.  He was hoping to be able to leave his bookshelf "as is" and come visit regularly. My Dad was not a big fan of change…and by me moving into the house on Old Army Road he would not have to say goodbye. He was not big on goodbyes.

            My Dad walked off and I got into my car with an acute sense of nostalgia. Seeing all of us sitting there, many of us who had been in those seats so many times before in much earlier years when Mather was a teacher and would be up on stage, wearing a cowboy hat and holding a live chicken, recruiting for the cross country team. He was quite the character. As I started my car, the Mathers were talking about going out for something to eat and I contemplated going with them. Then I thought maybe I would just go home because I was tired and it was around 10:00.  I hadn’t really seen much of my Dad so I went to their house to talk about all that had happened that day.  I sat at the kitchen table talking to my Mom and Daddy, Dave Sully and Mark joined us. Daddy seemed to feel good about the memorial; he said he was sorry he couldn’t find the light sticks he wanted to walk around the track with after the service. He was smiling. I think I had a diet coke in my hand. He was standing to the left of the kitchen sink, I think he took off his tie.

            After a while we moved into the living room, near the green chair where we had stood together a million times in the 29 years we had lived together in that house. We had stood there on random school nights and insignificant weekend afternoons. The first Christmas we lived in the house, our tree stood in the corner. We had fought in that room, laughed in that room, he had sat in that green chair next to the kitchen door and spoke on the phone about track meets, world issues and the failings of human civilization for hours on end. My siblings and I had each walked down the nearby staircase for prom pictures in front of the fire place.  My father and I stood there together on my wedding day as he put on his tuxedo jacket as we left for the church.  And it is here, on this night, that he smiled and hugged me for the very last time in front of the same green chair near the kitchen door. He was talking as we hugged, but I don’t remember what he was saying. At the time it was just an ordinary Wednesday night, I would see him in the morning. I think it was a little bit after 11:00 when I left. I did not know that in 5 hours I would be called back…and he would be gone… and I would be left sitting in a thick, sorrowful silence in the green chair near the kitchen door, at the bottom of the staircase.

The Weekend

So on Friday I got in the car and Eddie is already blasting the Grateful Dead before we pull out of the driveway and guess what song is playing and guess what verse comes on??...Yes, "Truckin", so weird since I ended my last blog with this line!! It came on again as we drove onto campus a few hours later. Really weird and great. We stopped and saw Charlie on the way up to Massachussetts. He has a big scar on the side of his head. It was hard to look at and breath at the same time. He was smiling and talking and laughing. While I was there, 2 packages arrived for him and 2 people dropped by the house with flowers and gifts. I can't tell you what it feels like to know my friend is so well taken care of up there in Rhode Island. Amy seemed a little bit back to herself. Her "normal" voice is returning and we talked about some other things we haven't spoken about in a while. I mean, when your son has a brain tumor, that really stays the focus of most or all the conversations...but on Friday it seemed OK to branch out a little bit onto other subjects. I don't know if this necessarily means anything, but we did.
What I mostly thought about while I was there was the grip that this little 9 year old boy has had on all of us. The outcome of his surgery affected everything for the people who love him. Here he was shooting marshmellows out of the marshmellow gun we brought him, having absolutely no idea that all of our lives, to different degrees, were hanging on the tread of this surgery and his recovery. I found myself talking to him in a calm and sensible voice about the Red Sox but the voice in my heart was silently screaming "Charlie!! Thank God you are OK!! Thank God you are here walking around shooting marshmellows! You scared the crap out of us and brought us to the brink of fear, a place so dark that your mom was crippled even by the thought of such darkness. Oh, Charlie you have no idea the prayers and tears and fear and gratidtude you have provoked in all of us...you will never know until you have your own babies and they walk around with your heart in thier hand wearing a blue Red Socks hat and khaki shorts!!"  But I kept my voice steady and tried to appear relaxed as he showed me the hundreds of cards he has recieved in the past few weeks. When my Madison was born in 1999, Amy sent me a card that said "Motherhood is living the rest of your life having your heart walk around outside your body." That's what I witnessed on Friday seeing Charlie. It was like Amy and Garrett were back from the brink, a brink they only had to visit and got to come away from. So many other parents don't get to come back from the brink and I am so grateful my friends got to come back.
We left Rhode Island and got to campus in time for cocktail hour. We stayed in the dorm rooms with one my good friend Doug and his wife Beth. The weekend was awesome, even though it rained. It was just so strange to see people 20 years later! Everyone changed but hadn't changed and it was soo good to see everyone again. I was not haunted at all by things of the past...it was impactful having Eddie there with me, meeting people from the only phase of my life he was not familiar with. This in and of itself helped me to feel more and more comfortable being back there. I loved having him be a part of it all.  The whole weekend was so much easier and better than I anticipated. Late night on Saturday some alumni from the class of 2006 (yes, only 5 years out of college) came to hang out in our room (only because they ran out of beer), I had another conversation with a 20-something with their whole life ahead of them. He has been dating his girlfriend for 3 years and is thinking about proposing to her. He was also talking about what career path to take and where to live...much like my conversation a few nights before with Meredith, I was reminded of those 2 phases of life, knowing the outcome of your adult life  vs. just starting to create it. I loved that I got to get up off the disgusting couch I was sitting on in the common room and walk down the disgusting hallway to my disgusting dorm room and get into a single bed next to my husband with a voicemail on my phone from my 3 girls. Many people want to go back to those days when there was more freedom and less responsibility. Not me. I like the freedom that the responsibility of a family has given me. I like that although I know many of my "unknowns" of my 20's, the story of my life is still unfolding. I got to spend a weekend with people I have loved in the past. I am grateful to reconnect with so many of them who I knew when my now "knowns" where then my "unknowns." I was also grateful to come home to a house that doesn't smell like stale beer and actually be able to sit down on the toilet seat to pee. These things go down, thank God, as two of the "knowns" of my life.

The Not Knowing and Knowing

Katie Meyler, who Founded a foundation "More Than Me" that sends kids to school in Liberia has become a close friend of mine. She is 27 and has a zest for life like no other. I know alot of people use this term "zest for life" but I mean it. Katie has it. She has the zest. I will save the story of how I met Katie 3 years ago  in an Indian Restaraunt in New Jersey and then again a few days later standing in front of the eggs in Shop-Rite and how she came to a Heartworks meeting that very same week, for another day. For now, let's talk about Meredith. Meredith is 23, from Indiana, and sight unseen asked Katie a few months ago if she could come and intern for her over the summer. Meredith had seen one of Katie's friends speak at her school and he mentioned Katie and More Than Me. Meredith was interested in working with a non-profit that is in the "start up" phase and had seen Katie's YouTube videos (if I knew how to put videos in a blog I would put it here so you could watch it). This past Saturday our friend (also named Katie) had a fundraiser for Katie M at her house- it was an awesome outdoor family day with a band and it raised $20,000 for More Than Me! While we were there, I was introduced to Meredith, her sight unseen intern and all the rest of the 20-something year old volunteers running around in More Than Me T-shirts. You knew each time you met one of them that they were good people. If they were helping Katie, you knew they were a good soul and that they are on the journey of self growth and discovery. YOu have to be on the journey if you are 23 and volunteering for a non-profit. Katie brought Meredith to our Heartworks meeting on Tuesday and now she is sleeping at my house tonight while Katie goes to Florida for a speaking engagement and she is babysitting my girls tomorrow night! I love that when I am telling Eddie who is watching the girls, he doesn't blink because of the whole  "if she is helping Katie she is a good soul" thing. Some of my most trusted Heartworkers spent last week with her setting up for the fundraiser and when I was like "Maybe Meredith could watch the girls Friday night and then stay at house all weekend, they were like "Fur Sure" (the Katie that had the fundraiser  uses this phrase alot, one of my favorite things about her because "Fur sure" is simply not used enough anymore)

I am leaving tomorrow to go to my 20 year college reunion (hence my need for a sitter) and it is so strange to have her here the night before I leave for this trip. I look at her and it was yesterday that I was where she is...my whole life ahead of me. She asked me tonight if I back packed around Europe..."Yup, when I was 22". We talked about what she wants to do...Back pack? Peace Corp?  I asked myself the same questions at her age. She is in the place of not knowing what her future holds. "What will she do?" "Where will she go?" "Who she will marry?" And here I am sitting in my kitchen (the same kitchen I was sitting in when I was 22) and I have my answers. I told her that it seems like yesterday I was her age and at the same exact time it feels like 100 years ago. And this really is exactly how it feels.

It is strange to think about being back on campus tomorrow night. It was another lifetime ago. There are some ghosts there for me, but I also know that many people under the reunion tent will be eating dinner with ghosts as well. Every campus, at one point or another is filled with the questions of "What will I do?" "Where will I go" and if you are a girl, "Who will I marry?" (very sexist, I know). I can't believe that I am old enough to have my answers... that I have 3 girls, I am Social Worker (this part I can believe) and run a Non- Profit. I went to Colorado and then came back home and I married Eddie McDowell who I past 1,000 in the hallway during my childhood without ever knowing he would one day be my husband. Very very strange because I remember the "not knowing how my life would turn out" phase literally like it was yesterday. And now I know. Back then I knew nothing about the word  terrorism other than maybe what I heard in a history class on a Friday morning before I dozed off in the back row. Now I know more than I ever wanted to know about this subject. If you had told me back then that John would be killed on a Tuesday afternoon at work when he was 42 and then 4 years later my Dad would die and that I would eventually find my balance again, I wouldn't have believed you....not one bit. But now I know this too. And I never would have thought that on my way to Massachussetts for my 20th college reunion I would be stopping off in Rhode Island because my BFF has 3 boys and her middle son Charlie had brain surgery last week. Its just too strange to even think about. I love that the night before I leave for my 20th reunion I have a circle of friends who are making a difference in the world and that I have a 23 year old girl, sleeping in my house who has an unknown adventure ahead of her. And maybe when she is leaving for her 20th college reunion she will remember being here, and how young she was and how old she thought I was and maybe she will think about how fast its all gone. I hope she will be content in the choices she has made and if she isn't, I hope she believes in herself enough to makes changes in her life.
Tomorrow I will get in the car with Eddie and we will listen to The Grateful Dead and drive to New England. And I will revisit a place of the past while knowing my answers..very very strange in deed. Is ending this blog with a reference to  "what a long strange trip it's been" just too cheesy?? I think it is, so I won't. But I do wonder if Meredith has ever listened to this song.

We only had 50 name tags

We ran out of name tags...we ran out of wine glasses and wine. The spinach dip was gone and so was the shrimp cocktail. If you were driving around Bernardsville and Basking Ridge, NJ this week you would say to yourself "Where the hell is everyone going?" Well I will tell you- we are going to end of the year soccer games, lacrosse games, dance recitals, piano, chorus and orchestra concerts, class parties, Girl Scout ceremonies, Cub Scout meetings and Indian Princess celebrations. And a few other things I am forgetting. But tonight at 8:00 there were 73 women sitting on a lawn in New Jersey signing cards for:
John- a soldier who had his legs blown off in Afganistan within the first three weeks of being there (we are sending him and his mom money from our garage sale)
Carly- a 20 something year old who works at an exercise studio in town and her apartment burned down a few months ago (we are giving her a gift card to buy things for her new apartment)
Helen- a mother of 4 kids in Sloan Kettering for 6 weeks receiving treatments (we are sending her a necklace that says "just breathe" and a book to read in the hospital)
Kelly- Who's husband died unexpectedly last month at the Kentucky Derby and has 3 children (we are sending them a box filled with 100 dollar bills to use for lunch money and errands)
and 8 other families that are struggling with an unexpected situation.

I am overwhelmed (or whelmed if you have read my past blog on this subject) with my life. That Eddie is sleeping upstairs and when I left the house, tonight at 6:00, a total disaster with mac and cheese on the stove he said what he always says " Have a great meeting, you're awesome and I love you" I am "whelmed" with the fact that 73 women left there houses tonight to come and do what started out as a thought in my head, at one of the lowest points in my life... a group for women to come together and get real and give to others...(crazy, I told myself at the time...nothing but crazy) But I did it and tonight, 7 years later, we were at my little sister's house and her kids sat through the meeting. When we finished they asked if they too, could light prayer candles...one for Uncle John who was killed on 9/11 and one for Grampy who died 4 short years later, and we looked down and there where 2 unlit candles.

That Maggie Doyne was there, home from running her orphange in Nepal and Katie Meyeler was there, taking a break from running her More Than Me Foundation in Liberia, and a newcomer...Shannon, who is still in high school but has started her own group to support kids in Tanzania- where the hell is Tanzania???

This is how AWESOME Heartworks is- these young women are doing all the things I didnt do because I found my Eddie and always wanted to get married and have kids. It is not that I am envious of them...but more that I am profoundly grateful for the work they are doing in the world while I am living in New Jersey driving to soccer practice. And I am also grateful for my friend Ann Stone's son Ben who left last week for the Peace Corp. I am grateful because I have "the calling" and I get to do my calling with AWESOME women and be married to my Eddie and sleep in a comfortable bed every night and wake up to my girls every morning. I get to make their lunches and hear their babble in the back seat of my mini van (yes, my cool days are way over) and I get to drink wine the first Tuesday of every month with women dedicated to a picture bigger than driving around our little town with Diet Coke in hand and Ray Bands blocking the sun. I will see my little Charlie this Friday on my way up to my 20th college reunion and I will give him the card that the Heartworks women signed tonight. I realize that I am someone whose life dreams have come true and I pray to God that I remember this feeling when I am driving around tomorrow like a mad woman,  late for soocer, spilling my Diet Coke all over my yoga pants (even though I'm not going to yoga) and realizing that I forgot to send in the juice boxes for the class party.

Last Heartworks Meeting Before Summer

We have our last Heartworks meeting until September tonight and I can't wait for the work we will be doing tonight. We have at least 10 families who are struggling with medical issues that we are reaching out to and today I am going to practice staying focused on balance. Balance of knowing how good my life is and also reaching out to people who are in crisis. My prayers are about staying calm and not get too overwhelmed by the meeting, but to focus on my family and take the day as it comes.

18 months ago little Campbell who is 5 and lives on my street was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Last week her mom and dad took her to a check up appointment in Boston. They were going to the same hospital as Charlie, on the same day, so she brought a gift bag from me to Amy and hand delivered it. While Charlie is home recovering, Campbell is unexpectedly having another surgery, back in Boston, next week to remove a new tumor at the base of her spine. We will make prayer ribbons for her tonight at the meeting for everyone to take home with them. One of the core understandings of Heartworks is that any of us, on any given day can be coasting along and without any warning life as we know it can be over. I encourage the people in my life to really understand how quickly things can change and to participate, the best we can in whatever phase we find oursleves in.

There is a temptation this morning for me to get overwhelmed with the amount of families, just within my small circle, that are facing serious, serious issues in their lives. Friends who's parents have died this month, two friends with children with tumors, too many friends to count who love someone living with cancer. There are women that say to me "I can't come to another Heartworks meeting, the stories are just too sad." My response is something to the effect that these life stories are happening everyday around the world, on our own street, whether we pay attention to them or not. I want to pay attention. People payed attention to my family in September 2001 even though they themselves were afraid, unsure and paralyzed. Paying attention to illness and death is exactly what gives me the gift of understanding an "ordinary day." I pray every single day to be able to see and live in the gifts I have like health, more time with my family, a roof over my head and food for my kids. All the rest is gravy. It really is. And I know this and so I teach it to others in hope that they can be transformed by the idea of paying attention and taking action rather than just saying "its just to sad."

We are expecting 40-50 women to come to the meeting tonight. That is an opportunity for a lot of transformation. I am humbled. I am grateful. I am blessed. I hope that every womam who needs to to be there finds a way to get there, even with all the end of the year parties, soccer games and dance recitals...balance, balance, balance.

If I focus to much on the devestation in the world it will paralyze me and I am no good to anyone. So I have to balance...wake each of my girls up slowly and intentionally...being ever so grateful for another day with them. Take the planning for the meeting tonight one step at a time and trust that God is awake and aware and taking care of things, I just need to do my part. I know that Heartworks changes the  lives of those recieving from us as well as the women coming to the meetings. Sometimes this responsibility seems too big for me. To be the mom, wife, daughter and friend I want to be and then also do what needs to be done for Heartworks. But there are other women who have been transformed by the Heartworks concepts and so I am not alone in organizing the meetings or following through on the opportunities we have. The Advisory Board is my saving grace. The women who call and say "I can help with this" after reading an email about a family who needs air conditioners so their daughter can breath easier this summer, more saving grace. My husband Eddie, who tells me everyday how important the work is that we are doing, when a huge part of me feels like I should be folding laundry and cleaning the family room ...more and more saving grace.

Life is fleeting and Charlie's brain tumor is out

I just got off the phone with Amy, and Charlie's surgery went GREAT. So now I am e-mailing, returning phone calls and announcing to everyone that the surgery was a success. I want to throw up, drink a glass of wine and go up into the mountains to a cave and pray -- all at the same time. The relief I feel for them is beyond words.

My day was spent in constant prayer with other people (at the church Amy and I grew up going to) and by myself. It was interesting to me that I was not able to hold the intensity of prayers all day. At one point I was watching Regis and Kelly and eating Cheese Its. It is a funny balance this God vs, human vices thing...I know the peace is with God, and yet the temptation of mindless TV and sugar pulled me away at points.

To sit in the church were Amy and I both received our First Holy Communion, attended mass (regularly OF COURSE) :) both got married at and attend my Dad's funeral mass in was just about as "whelming" as it gets. Old family friends Mr. and Mrs. Dolan and their son Cholly were the first to arrive for Charlie's prayer vigil, along with my Mom. To sit there with them, all in their late 70's/early 80's and pray for Amy's son is a vision I will never forget. Mr.Dolan is not his old self, but an Irish spirit in an worn out body that came along too soon for all of us. It seems it's all happened to fast, life, I mean...my mom and Mrs. Dolan's grey hair, Mr.Dolan's shaky body, my father gone 6 years ago this month...when did all this happen? How is it we are not here in white dresses going home for our communion parties? The phrase "life is fleeting" was like a physical presence sitting next to me in the pew.

To hear Amy's voice a few minutes ago telling me the tumor was removed successfully, is the first time I have had my BFF back in two weeks. It is the first time I have recognized her voice since the morning of May 18 when she called me screaming into the phone that Charlie had fallen down the stairs while having a seizure. I have a newfound love and appreciation for her voice, her laughter ... and  her. And I didn't even know I was lacking this.

A good glass of wine is more fun than puking or praying in the mountains (don't tell the Pope) ... so I think I will sit with Eddie and have a drink -- for Charlie, the sound of my BFFs voice and my favorite memory of Mr. Dolan when I was 11 years old and he was only a few years old than I am now. We were at his house on Boulderwood Drive, surrounded by his friends, watching the 1980 USA Olympic team beat the Russians in hockey. At the time I knew I was lucky, not because I was an American and we had won the game, but because I was a part of a great party at a house full of love. Thirty-one years later as I sat with his daughters today at church it was a similar feeling, just with less beer and no celebration ... but the feeling of love was unchanged ... grey hair, shaky body, brain tumor and all.