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.”
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