The Reckoning

We knew death was coming. We watched it for almost 7 years, peeking through the glass, dipping it’s toes in the bath, hiding in the closet. We knew it was losing patience with my mom’s desire to stay here, with us, as long as she could, and yet when it finally came, when we saw it open the door and enter the room, when we stared it in the face we couldn’t help but be shocked that it does actually exist - that it will take away from you the breath of the one you love most.

Have you seen death? Have you watched the shallow breathing of a loved one slowly subside, seen the last life breath, felt the skin, still warm to the touch start to cool, watched the veins turn purple, the skin white and glistening, the body growing rigid - difficult to walk away, to say goodbye. It changes you. It shifts your insides around, forces reflection in serious and uncomfortable ways and pushes you to the brink of exhaustion, depression, emotion....

It’s been almost 6 months, and not an hour of the day goes by where I am not still profoundly saddened by this loss, by my lack of peace in her not being here, present, in this life, surrounding me with her love, her encouragement, her way of grace. When you lose your mother, when you become an orphaned adult, you lose the context of your life, the keeper of your memories, the place holder of the one person who knows you from the tiniest formation to the fully realized you. And moving through this grief does not happen quickly, does not happen in a linear form, and is NOT something you can check off the list and move on to the next. I am learning, just now, to live WITH this loss and not let the loss be what defines my movements and moments. I am progressing. It is slow. It is painful, but it is real and honest and the only way my mother would want it to be. Of that much I am certain.

And as a new year comes crashing into the calendar, my first year without a mother, I am ready to look into it, put my big girl shoes on and start moving forward - Relentless Forward Motion.... Toward that end - I’ve tacked up a training plan, signed onto a social networking site for runners, told everyone around me my goals and desires for my 2012 running year and re-dedicated myself, to myself: to the movement, the relentless forward motion, the breathing in & out, pounding, sweating, heart pulsing joy that is running. I’m smiling again - in bits and pieces - and hoping that this essential piece of my life ushers me through and onto the closure stage of grief - so that I can begin to honor my mother with true joy and reflection and understand this cycle we call life. My focus is on building a solid mileage base in order to really succeed at the Ultra Distance in the way my body is capable.

February 25: Cowtown Half Marathon - Ft. Worth, Tx
March 11: Quivering Quads Trail Half Marathon - Troy Missouri
April 15: Go St. Louis Marathon - St. Louis, Mo
May 31: Soldier Field 10 mile - Chicago, Il
August 25: Lean Horse 100 mile!!!!! - Hot Spring, SD (Top 3 overall finish)
October 21: Rock-N-Roll St. Louis Marathon - St. Louis, Mo
November 16: JFK 50 mile Boonsboro, MD (Top 10 overall finish)

Endurance Training 2012 begins now. Follow me as I train and race my way through the year!