more important things than running

Today a dull and frigid (token) 5-ish miles in Southie. I wore my normal kicks, and my new tights--to which the only thing I can think to say is, "Women of above-average height unite! Fight! Fight against the strangely heighted crotch in stockings and running tights! Fight, I say!" Damn those tights. And they weren't even that warm. DAMN THEM, I SAY! Anyway. All of that aside. While running tonight, I did some reflecting. I was trying to think about the people in my family that died from cancer--my uncle Mike and my grandma Bev. I wanted to try to talk about them and who they were, but it's harder than I thought it would be--it's been such a long time already. So I will give you a snippet, my favorite stories of them both.

My uncle Mike was my Dad's older brother. My dad is the fourth of five, so Mike was soundly in the middle. My favorite story of Mike is about how he got his name. When my grandma Anne was expecting, the two oldest boys, Steve and Tony, decided they wanted a little brother named Mike. When my grandparents had the baby and brought him home, they introduced him as Dennis. Steve and Tony, and eventually everyone else (including my grandparents) ultimately ended up calling him Mike anyway--all the way until the day he died. This was very confusing to me as a child, needless to say.

A less favorite story is a more painful one to remember--the day he died. My dad, easily the epitome of strong and silent type (an utter marshmallow, of course) telling me that another family member had called to say that Mike was about to go, and asking if he wanted to come say goodbye. I remember my Dad's fear that Mike would see his family members standing around the bed and feel as though they were just waiting for him to die.

My Grandma Bev was my Mom's mother, and a tiny woman, married to a big, burly dutchman. When she found a lump in her breast, she didn't want to worry him, so she didn't mention it. She died of bone cancer in 1989 after a 10-year battle. I remember my mom saying, years later after my grandfather died, in a forlorn voice that she was an orphan now.

My favorite story about my grandmother was one that happened long before I was born. It involves when my Uncle Steve brought him his (I think!) new fiance, Ann. Ann met my grandparents--and the way I've heard the story was that she was very embarrassed the next morning because she'd gotten a little buzzed the night before. However, the family was all to go tubing on the Apple River that day, and my grandmother ended up getting so smashed she couldn't get out of her tube at the end of the river. Apparently in those days, there were periodic garbage cans with targets for tubers to throw the empties in as they continued on down the river. Ann, needless to say, felt considerably less embarrassed by the end of that day.

So those are the two people that I think of when I am running and fundraising for Dana-Farber.
Running IS hard. Fundraising is no picnic, either. But they are all real people. All of us doing this have them in our hearts. These, here, are mine.