The other side of normal

I did two seventeen-mile runs in less than a week. Within six days, to be exact.

Covering that amount of distance in such a small amount of time is usually a no-no for me. When I'm in marathon training mode, I normally alternate weeks. One Sunday I might run fifteen. The next Sunday I'll run ten or twelve.  Many endurance athletes, especially us older ones, operate this way. We still build stamina, but we also give our muscles and joints the recovery time they need.

That's how I normally operate. But normal went out the window last weekend, when my daughters' cousin died suddenly, unexpectedly.

Divorce changes everything. Family interactions sometimes end. Vocabulary shifts. Hence, "daughters' cousin," not niece. I hadn’t seen this beautiful child since she was a kindergartner.  But I knew of her from my daughters because they'd see her at certain holidays and kept in touch with her online. They knew her and loved her. 
  

The first of my two seventeen-milers was the day after we learned about the death. The run did not go as planned. My brain and legs weren't communicating. Or maybe they were communicating too well. My head was back in the 1980s, when all the children were young and we were all still connected. My legs wanted to stay close to home. Running was the last thing I wanted to be doing. I wanted to be with my daughters, but that was impossible. The one most deeply affected was coping by working. The other is off in the Midwest. We talked a ton on the phone but you can’t spend all day on the phone. So I ran. 

Sometimes running heals. Sometimes it doesn't. That day, I walked for the first time at mile one, for a few seconds on some flat stuff. I walked for the second time at mile four, a no-brainer hill which I always manage slowly, steadily, easily.  Mile five I walked again and thought about turning around and heading home. But I convinced myself to keep going. Reminded myself that sometimes things get tough, but if you just hold on, things usually get better again. 

I was run/ walking on the rail trail at mile eight when I saw a young gym friend, S. She’s about the age of my older daughter.  S is a swift and elegant runner who just returned to running distances about six months ago, after a half year off. Last summer she had a stroke. She was in a rehab facility for awhile, relearning how to walk and talk. For awhile, things were bad. Then things got better.  In October, we’ll be running the same marathon together, though she’ll finish at least an hour ahead of me. 

From mile ten on, I mainly walked. I cried a lot and thought a ton of sad thoughts. I mentally rescheduled the next weekend, a weekend already chock full. I’d have to somehow get that seventeen in. The usual reel of inspiring running quotes spooled through my head, but sad phrases seeped in too: The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare.  Fall seven, rise eight.  No one ever said it would be easy. Addiction affects the whole family. Why did this child have to die? There but for the grace of God. . .

  

The funeral was at the end of the week, Friday. The priest talked about lots of things related to losing someone so vibrant and beautiful, so hell bent on living. He talked about the Mass being a celebration of Christ’s resurrection. He talked about learning lessons. He talked about anger. 

I sat in the back, an outsider to all but a few, and kept my eyes focused on certain beloved family members near the front of the church who could write books on the Herculean struggles of getting clean and staying sober. See, there's a bigger story here to tell, but it's not mine. So I have to write in generalities to show love, honor, respect, support. Certain ties -- memories, genetics -- run tangled, dark, deep. 

  

As the crowd dispersed I was approached by another ex family member.  “I can tell you feel the same way as me,” she said. I kept my mouth shut because, as with other things, she had no idea. She hadn’t known the child during the newborn, toddler, protected years. She doesn't know what I know about some of the others.

I said I was angry. I could see my response surprised this woman. I said I was angry like I couldn’t even believe. 

People sometimes assume roles in tragic times. This woman seemed to want to take on the role of counselor with me right then, right there, in the church. 

She glanced over at the procession of mourners, standing in the center aisle, right behind the coffin, and started in with “there but for the grace of God.”

I finished the sentence for her and said, "Yes I know: Go I. Go we."


I wanted to add: “I am not an idiot. I know how addiction works. I know how genetics works. I know how depression works. I know how compassion works. I know about accidents of circumstance. I know that you don’t ever ever dare judge someone else until you walk in their exact, specific shoes and so the truth is you can’t judge. Ever. That doesn’t mean I can’t be angry. I absolutely am allowed to be angry. It’s part of my process. “

In truth, the sights and sounds of those mourners knee-quaking stomach-shaking terrified me.

I ran my seventeen miles yesterday. It was not as disastrous a run as I expected. Considering I’d covered the same distance a scant six days earlier, though much of it walking, it went pretty well. I was slow, but steady. Sometimes I walked and cried a little.

On my run, I thought of what it means to be resurrected.  I thought of loved ones, genetics, sobriety, accidents of circumstance and that horrific phrase that starts with there but for the grace of God. I thought about the nature of perseverance, of getting up that eighth ninth, fifteenth time and trying again. But here’s the thing. Today, though I’m tired to the core, the anger is still there. The fear that's stoking it just won't subside. Hopefully, some day it will.

Never give up.