In Memoriam: Austin Marathon 2015

I had absolutely no expectation of running a marathon any time in the first few months of 2015. The year had already been quite busy. The first two weeks of January were consumed with packing for a long-distance move. The rest of the month was filled with driving from Indianapolis to Seattle and unpacking, along with searching for a job. In addition, my eldest kitty finally reached the end of his year-long decline, and we had to say goodbye January 31.

The first weekend in February I decided it was time to get down to Texas to visit my parents. I hadn’t been since Thanksgiving, and I knew my ailing father (congestive heart failure and COPD) had been struggling more than usual lately. He was getting ever nearer the end, but he had already held on far, far more longer than any doctor would have dared dream, so I was feeling only a little more anxious than usual. The plan was to fly down there mid-week, depending on availability of seats. My dear brother, who has been looking out for both parents for years, sent some concerning texts early in the week, so Wednesday afternoon I went ahead and purchased a ticket to Austin. By this time, I knew my Pop was likely having his last ride on the downward side of the roller-coaster he’d been on for so long, but still didn’t expect to lose him for another few days. I landed in San Jose early Thursday morning to find a text from my brother.

Ugh. Now it’s a race to say goodbye. Dammit. Of course the flight was 20 minutes late and we had a never-happens Easterly headwind, so I just had to cross my fingers that I wouldn’t miss him. Thankfully, Pop was still alive, and was keeping his promise to hold on until I got there.

He was clearly miserable, laying in his recliner, covered in blankets just trying to be as comfortable as possible. By now he was too weak to speak with any voice, but he was completely present and aware of his surroundings. He was able to rouse and open his eyes, and we said our goodbyes. He told me he was proud of me, and said “I love you” many times, to everyone. His mind was there until the end.

He gave up the fight and died at around 6:30pm Thursday. He had defied the odds for many, many years and had far surpassed many doctors’ expectations. His will to live was extraordinary, and we had benefited from that will for a very long time. He never stopped smiling and finding joy in being alive, no matter the circumstance.

So how does this relate to the marathon? Well, Friday I decided to do the marathon, after the following conversation with my brother.

Me: I don’t know which to do, the full or the half.
Bro: Are you trained for a marathon?
Me: [Laughing] Oh heck no!
Bro: But you can do a half, easy, right? Isn’t that like a long training run?
Me: Yeah...I can get through a half without too much trouble.
Bro: Well, a full would probably be really good at burning off stress. Would give you more time.
Me: Oh what the hell. Gonna hurt anyway.

I had packed a minimal set of running clothes, in the hopes of getting a training run in, but no fuel belts or gels or any other typical racing items. The route is laid out such that if, by mile 12, I was severely hurting and needed to bail, I could simply turn off and finish the half. Given that my “training” had essentially consisted of 4-5 30-minute or so trots around Seattle and zero bike training for two months, my expectations were quite low. I just wanted to finish. My father had always enjoyed my spontaneous (lack of planning) nature, and got a kick out of the fact that his baby girl does endurance events, so he would have loved it that I just decided to do this race to remember him and try to burn off some grief.

Somehow I survived, resisted the urge to turn right at mile 12, and trotted to the finish line. My slowest marathon ever, but I finished. I had five hours and 44 minutes to reflect on how lucky I was to enjoy my father’s presence for 53 years. The day was pleasant, I was surrounded by several thousand people who each had their own story, and it was easy to enjoy being alive.

This one was for you, Pop. I love you.

Sorry For Your Loss

"I'm sorry for your loss." These words seem so trite when they don’t apply to you. I’ve heard these words many times, as I’m a huge fan of TV programs whose characters often utter these words. (You know the ones: CSI, Law & Order, etc.) As a viewer, I’ve felt that these words sound so contrived and empty, and have wondered if it was better to say nothing at all.

I've concluded that it isn't.

My sweet and cherished father passed away two weeks ago, and many people have said, "I'm sorry for your loss." And it has mattered. It helps. It doesn't matter if I'm close to the person uttering those words, or if they're a new acquaintance, or if they even knew my father. It helps.

This seemingly trite phrase conveys far more than the simple words. It conveys a visceral understanding of something that happens to all of us: we all lose people we love. It’s unavoidable, yet we rarely speak of it. We don't talk about grief, or sadness, or how we suddenly deeply miss the person at the most inopportune times. We don’t talk about how surreal it feels, how hard it is to truly believe that we will never see or speak with the person again, how blindingly final the death is.

Yet it's a universal experience. None of this is unusual or special. It just is. And everyone who lives long enough shares the pain. "I'm sorry for your loss" is an acknowledgment that the pain goes to your core and there's not a damned thing you can do about it besides outlast it. It's an acknowledgment that this is a shared experience that ranks at the bottom of human existence. And it's a reminder that we all suffer together, in different ways and at different times, and that we all empathize and care for each other.

Saying nothing is denial of reality.

So. Please. When we know there's nothing we can do to help, say "I'm sorry for your loss." In its own small, but significant way, it helps.

Group hugs, on the other hand...um, no!

Death of a Muse

In general, I have no beef with growing older. In fact, I'm really enjoying the heck out of it. Each decade is better than the previous, and I look forward to every day. However, there is one giant caveat to growing older: losing friends.

Last week the world lost a pretty unique and amazing human named Georgeann. I met Georgeann a very long time ago at Arizona State, in 1983. She played trombone, I played bassoon. The trombones sat right behind the bassoon section, and we entertained each other through tedious orchestra rehearsals while the conductor completely ignored anything sitting beyond the string sections. She was my roommate at the Aspen Music Festival in 1984, and three of us spent the nine weeks laughing ourselves silly when we weren't in rehearsals.

But there was a lot more to George than fun times. When I met her, she explained that she had no spleen, so had to be careful about staying healthy. It had been removed in her early twenties due to some sort of immune system disorder. Since the spleen is a major component of the immune system, there were certain things she had to be especially careful about. She wasn't particularly concerned about it and didn't let it control her life, it was just something to be aware of.

Life went on. I moved to Boston, she and Barry built a locksmithing business in Chicago, she gave up trombone and learned to play the cello, and eventually had a little girl, Kati. She even volunteered at a children's hospital, on top of everything else.

Thanksgiving weekend of 1995, after a shift at the hospital, Georgeann went home and went to bed, feeling like she had the flu. Barry came home early from the shop to look after little Kati, who was only a few months old. Georgeann fell asleep for a few hours. Some time in the night, she got up to go to the bathroom. Only she couldn't walk. Her hands and feet were very, very cold. She woke up Barry, who had the presence of mind to literally carry her and the baby down to the car and go to the nearest hospital.

Luck was still with them, as someone in the emergency room recognized what was going on. Georgeann had picked up the same strep bug that killed Jim Henson (creator of the Muppets) in a matter of hours. The only treatment is to throw multiple combinations of antibiotics at it and hope something works in time. I don't know the details, but at some point her heart stopped, she was in a coma, and went into septic shock. The survival rate for septic shock is somewhere around 40%. It was lower 18 years ago when this happened. Somehow, she survived all of this.

After a couple of weeks of inaccurate second-hand information, I finally flew to Chicago to see her. The first words out of her mouth were, "Carla! I'm alive! What happened to my hands and feet could have happened to my brain! They tell me I'm going to be able to hold my daughter!" She had dry gangrene in all of her digits and both feet, starting above the ankles. All were a dark purple color. Her fingers were so shriveled they looked like claws -- the fingernails were huge on her poor sticks of fingers. Her feet were bloated like a kiddie balloon with toes. The infection had sent all of her coagulants to her extremities, and had been literally killing her from the outside in. It was quite a shock to see, but her enthusiasm for living quickly made it just part of who she was. That was how she handled it.

I was there for three days, and lost track of how many times she exclaimed, "Carla! I'm alive!" She was very eager to get the feet amputated and get started on recovery. She had already been prepped more than once, only to get down to surgery and spike a fever and wake up back in her room with the dead feet still attached. She was scheduled to try again the day after I left. Typical of Georgeann, she said, "I know they're holding me back, and I'm ready to have them gone, but ya know, it's gonna be a little strange to look down and see them gone." Sheesh. I had to laugh at her and say, "Georgeann! It's going to be more than a 'little strange', it's going to be effing weird!" We had a good laugh.

Even after her feet were amputated, it took another couple of months before she could start learning to walk again, because they were trying to salvage as much of her hands as possible. She endured many debriding sessions and bided her time until they removed her fingers. She was left with no knuckles, and half a thumb joint in one hand. After surgery, she held up her hands and said, "I have Muppet hands!" She learned to walk, celebrated Kati's first birthday right there in the hospital, and she was discharged eight months after going to bed to sleep off a flu.

A few years later she and Barry adopted a boy from Russia. By this time she was driving again (still like a bat out of hell), walking around 2.5 miles a day (same gait as before), raising the kids, working with Barry at the security shop, riding a stationary bike 30 minutes a day, etc. While she still needed help with some things, she was amazingly self-sufficient, and never let on how exhausting or frustrating it all had to be. She didn't let it define who she was or what she did. She was very annoyed at having to wear pants with elastic waistbands, however.

In the last few years of her life, she discovered her passion in horseback riding. She bought a horse and trained for dressage competitions. All with no feet and no hands to speak of. Her dream was to ride in a competition herself, and I think she would have done that very soon had things gone her way. I can't even imagine how hard it is to ride a horse when you can't use your feet and ankles to hold on or communicate with the horse - she was using only her upper legs and her core simply to stay upright. Amazing.

I have a short list of people that truly motivate and inspire me when things are getting hard in an endurance event and it's slipping into a sufferfest. George was, and will always be, one of those people. When my feet hurt, I am happy to have feet and happy to have the ability to feel pain. I think of how hard Georgeann had to work to do anything at all, and that usually stops the pity party before it can get started. Every visit with her was a laugh-fest, whether we were making fun of Pia Zadora, telling stories, or making plans to get totally plowed, visit Graceland, and see how long it took to get kicked out. I will miss the emails forwarding links of potential Darwin-award winners in the news, accompanied by some hilariously sarcastic remark.

Georgeann died in the hospital, choking on her breakfast. She had been sick off and on for the past year, with what appeared to be respiratory issues and perhaps congestive heart failure. We all attributed this to her compromised immune system, and figured she probably had a lot of damage from the original illness 18 years ago. This time, she'd been in the hospital a couple of weeks, was very weak, and was having difficulty sitting up straight. It's a mystery to us as to why she was left alone to eat in this condition.

What none of us knew was that earlier in the week, they had done a bone marrow biopsy, and found multiple myeloma. Her husband didn't even know about this finding until after she died. We think she may have found out the day before, but never had the chance to talk to anyone about it. She was planning to go to rehab the following Monday for three days, then go home (she died on a Saturday). We don't know details, but the implications are that the cancer was bad enough that she was not going to survive it. It certainly looks like one of the more nasty forms to get, without a very hopeful prognosis.

So. How to respond to this. Be upset that she died choking, likely knowing she was dying, due to what can only be viewed as neglect? Or be grateful that she didn't have to suffer the indignities of chemo, radiation, and likely horrible bone pain for an extended period of time? While sad and shocked that we had to lose her the way we lost her, I choose to be grateful, while a little angry and disgusted with the hospital. I'm so glad she didn't have to hurt or be sick anymore. She fought so hard and for so long that she had to be tired of it. I know she wasn't quite ready to go, but her future was grim.

Georgeann, thank you for all the smiles, all the tears from laughing so hard, all the inspiration and motivation. You have no idea how many people admired you for your strength and refusal to sit back and give up. You will always be my muse.

Gradations of Sadness

My father is dying.

There, I said it. I'm not saying this to make anyone feel bad or elicit sympathy. I'm just stating a fact. It's the crappy, but expected, part of life. We lose those we love, or they lose us. My father is 90 years old, and his heart is finally failing. I, for one, am incredibly grateful to have had him this long. Given his history of heart problems, the last 35 years have been a gift.

I spent some time with him this past weekend, saying goodbye, enjoying his company and being inspired by his grace. Selfishly, it had not occurred to me that the opportunity to say goodbye would mean as much to him as it did to me. There was lots of smiling and laughing.

On day 2 of my visit, I was shaken out my own emotional drama by some completely unexpected news. The closest friend of one of my dearest, oldest friends had suddenly died, at 54. He apparently suffered a massive heart attack, and was found lying at a bus stop in Chicago. I had met him once, and been completely charmed and won over. He was a very special man, and an integral part of my friend's life.

Any sadness I felt was obliterated by the pain I must imagine my friend experiencing. She is devastated by the sudden, unexpected, untimely loss of her closest friend on the planet. Any sense of pain I feel pales in comparison to what she must be going through. I am truly heartbroken for her.

I'm feeling a gentle tug of sadness, a very slow pulling away of the life force known as my father. It feels right; the impending loss is appropriate. My father has lived a long and happy life, seeing joy all along the way and sharing it with his family. We've been blessed to have him for 90 years, far more than I ever expected. This Daddy's Girl is never going to be ready to lose the love of my life, but it's part of the human existence. While sad, it's very manageable.

In contrast, Romy has had her closest, dearest friend yanked suddenly away from her, with no warning, no time to prepare. His life ended prematurely, before he was done. She has incurred a gaping wound of pain and grief, and is trying to find her way through it. Her sadness is sharp and violent, a swift wrenching loss. I can't begin to imagine the turmoil she is experiencing. I wish I could do something to make it better for her, but I can't. All I can do is let her know I'm here.

I guess the lesson here is that there is perspective in everything. And I am feeling incredibly lucky.

Notes on running and grieving

Away from home, visiting elderly parents.

Saturday morning. Planning on sleeping late.

6:21 a.m. Phone notifies of incoming text. Flooded with sense of dread and knowing what it will say.

Reach for phone. Simple message: "the wait is over".

Great sadness, mixed with a tinge of relief. Brain tries to comprehend implications. Never see smile again. Never hear booming laugh again. Can it be true?

Gratitude for end of suffering doesn't quite make up for sense of loss, not yet. Give it a few days.

Next day, 4:30 a.m. Alarm goes off. Get up, eat, dress, haul stuff down to the car. Find parking area for shuttle bus.

Get to race start. Join crowd of 27,000 other people in various stages of awakeness. Wish for coffee but know it would be a very bad idea right now.

Not so sad today, but not mentally ready for 13.1 miles. Oh well. Already paid for it, am here, and know it will get better once going.

People-watch for an hour before starting. Speculate who will beat who to the finish line. Slowly shuffle to start line with starting wave.

Cross timing mat at start and quietly navigate around slower people. Feel heart rate climb and spirits follow. Cross the 5K mat, wondering where the first three miles went. Pass five mile sign and feel great. Don't remember yesterday's loss until mile eight or so. Mentally register it, and keep moving.

Enjoy capacity to sweat a lot. Ignore aching knees. Don't think about tender feet. Acknowledge that perhaps the orthotics are toast. Breathe. Note steady heart rate.

Pass someone using a walker. Someone else with a walking cast. Another with "Weight loss so far: 125 pounds" on the back of her shirt.

Add yesterday's loss to the list of Why and be grateful for having a choice. Dedicate today's happy physical existence to those who don't.

Breathe. In. Out. Fast. Slow.

Sprint to finish. Enjoy mourning in public with thousands of other people with thousands of stories. Alone but not alone.

Happy I have the opportunity to remember who Jim was.

Thank you, Jim.