Archive for October, 2007
October 20, 2007 @ 6:34 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
Oh my goodness.
Today was a definite red letter day. Or…pink letter day may be the better term.
As I took my place in the (literal) sea of walkers and runners that had gathered for the Susan G. Komen race for the cure, I saw folks of all ages, races, and genders. I saw survivors whose heads were covered with scarves or caps and I saw daughters running for their mothers and mothers walking arm-in-arm with their daughters.
It moved me so much and, even though I had set out on this training journey to get healthy myself, this was a reminder of the bigger-more important- reason I was there today.
I had the names of two women pinned to my shirt beneath my race number, and with every step I took, I was aware that I was running healthy while they were both either in recovery/remission or still in treatment. Breast cancer scares the fool out of me. I want so badly to deny it, maybe even ignore it, but it keeps managing to rear its ugly head.
I’m at the part in Faith’s story where I need to do some one-on-one interviews and I’m stalling. I know this. I think this is another example of where I halt the writing process and begin to question whether or not I’m the author meant to tell this particular story. I don’t have cancer. Never have had it. How can I do justice to a story of this magnitude? How can I approach the women who ARE capable of doing it justice and ask them to share their story? I see prayer, lots and lots of prayer, in my immediate future as I try to wrap this story up.
When I crossed the two-mile marker today, I didn’t know if I had the stamina to finish the race. I knew I COULD do it - I’d been doing three miles for several weeks now. I’d been training for this day for two months now and had pushed my body to limits it didn’t even know it had.
For the first time in my adult life I am healthy in mind, body, heart, and soul - all at once - and it feels simply amazing. So there was no way I was going to do anything less today that cross that finish line…running!
Just as I passed the stand where an announcer proclaimed “Congratulations, runners! You have only two hundred yards to go!” I glimpsed my dad with the video camera. I know the man never, ever thought he’d see the day his daughter would run anywhere, let alone in a race of this magnitude. A little further down was the rest of my family and, before I knew it, I had crossed the finish line.
I know that my part in today’s event was minimal.
I raised a few hundred dollars for breast cancer awareness, but the need is so, so, so great. It felt good to get outside of myself, my own life and my own comfort zone, and reach for something to serve the great good. In some ways, it feels as though I’m better equipped to add a new, needed dimension to Finding Faith. That wasn’t my intent, but that is probably one of the coolest fringe benefits of writing - learning to let go and trust God to work in the details.
You would think I would be used to it by now, but I’m just not.
