I Am Not Running

If I weren't injured I'd be running the Boston Marathon today.  As I've been telling many people it's a good news, bad news proposition.  The bad news is I am not able to run the marathon due to a nagging Achilles strain.  The good news, I say in jest and to mollify my disappointment, is I don't have to push my body 26.2 miles.

As I write this entry, I have the marathon on television.  The elite runners are pushing through the head winds and behind them the throngs of other runners have begun their arduous and inspiring journey.    When I began my training this winter and was struggling up the rolling hills where I live and run I'd imagine I was trudging up Heartbreak Hill.  When I was descending the hills, I'd imagine it was the long and steady descent that marks the beginning miles of Boston.   I'd say to myself, if I can't do this how will I manage on marathon Monday.

As January became February and I increased my long run mileage from 10 to 12 to 14 to 16, I was making the steady progress required to complete 26 plus miles.  But then in mid-February, on a short easy recovery run, I felt a twinge in my left Achilles.  In the weeks that followed, I stretched, I iced, I took copious handfuls of ibuprofen.  I ran through the pain.  When all of that failed to demonstrably reduce the inflammation, I ceased running and began to do my aerobic workouts at the gym on the bicycle and elliptical trainer.  The pain was less, but still present.  I went to physical therapy and held out hope that I'd have enough time to both recover from the injury and still fit in the necessary training miles before it was too late.

The pain ebbed but not entirely until finally, with just about 6 weeks remaining before Boston, I decided that if I was going to be able to run, I needed to get back on the roads and get in the miles.  I set out on a crisp Saturday morning in early March.  I was determined to endure some discomfort, but was also mindful that too much pain might be signaling catastrophic and long term injury.  After just a few miles I felt the familiar soreness with each stride.  I tried to run lightly and gently, but after a couple more miles wisdom prevailed.  I called my wife and asked her to pick me up.

On the ride home I tried not to sulk.  I tried to focus on the correctness of my decision.  I knew I was doing the smart thing, but I also knew that the structure of my days would now fade. I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't be exercising for a while.  I enjoyed not just the running, the being in shape, but also the commitment to training.  Because a marathon is a serious undertaking, one can't shirk the training - at least I can't.  I am not a natural athlete.  It is work for me and without fear of pain that the marathon represented, I felt certain that my commitment to running would slide.

I was right.  After that day, I have largely failed to do my ankle exercises.  With the exception of a 10K I ran a couple of weeks ago (with mild Achilles pain the whole way), I haven't done much in the way of aerobic exercise.  As I sit now, watching the marathon, I think I am beginning to understand why.  I am pouting.  Pouting, just like the pouting I witness in my two year-old, only punishes the pouter.  I've used my legitimate injury as an illegitimate excuse to wallow.  Now with the Boston Marathon here and nearly gone, it's time to put my disappointment to rest.  I was not at the start of this race and I won't be at the finish.  It is what it is - an experience to learn from.   Through the process of training, injury, sulking, and watching these runners runners today, I've come to realize that I'd rather be running.  Time to start rehabbing my ankle.

Congratulations to all the marathoners.  I sincerely appreciate your accomplishment.

Cloaked Triggers

Linda and I watched In the Valley of Elah the other night. The film follows a father named Hank (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who learns his son is AWOL after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq.  It isn't long before we learn that his son has been murdered and the movie's plot centers on Hank's efforts to learn who perpetrated the crime.  In the course of the action we learn that Hank and his wife also lost their only other child, another son ten years prior in a military helicopter crash.

Watching the film, one can't help but feel tremendous sympathy for Hank and his wife, played by Susan Sarandon.  Two sons, both dead.   Watching a fictionalized portrayal of this kind of parental loss isn't easy.  You likely know parents who struggle with child illness and death.  Sadly, it may be you.  Death  - in whatever form it comes  - is something with which we all must eventually encounter.  But parents who've actually had to endure such tragedies must both cope with the reality of their situation and also figure out a way to live a life amongst those who haven't.  And for those of us who have lost a child, sometimes it's hard to know when those wounds, however long ago inflicted will be reopened.

Toward the end of In the Valley of Elah, when director Paul Haggis lays the sentimentality on pretty thick, feeling sadness rise in me, I glanced over at Linda and saw tears welling in her eyes.  Immediately, I knew that these were not tears for the characters in the movie.  They were tears for Leo.  After eight months of normal pregnancy and for no known cause, Leo was stillborn late last July.

So much has changed since then.  Our son Max is nearly two and half years old.  As parents well know, children of this age develop so rapidly that even a small amount of time can encompass monumental change.  Though a short amount of time may pass, it seems more has owing to the rapid rate of transformation.  Six months ago we lived in a city condo in Massachusetts.  We now live in the quiet country of Connecticut.  And while we've changed much in terms of our surroundings and circumstance when we think about Leo and linger in those thoughts for even a brief moment, all the same feelings come rushing, bull rushing back.  How can it be that Leo's not with us?  How can it be that this has happened to us?  This should not be!  And while Max is more than we could have ever of dreamed, by all rights we should have two sons.  We should have Max and Leo.

Moving to a new town, meeting new people.  They don't know us; they couldn't know our story.  They see us with Max and wonder where he gets his curls from (not from us but from his birth parents).  They ask if we have just the one child.  We answer yes because what else would we say to a new acquaintance?  But we can't say the words without thinking we should have two.  It's not that we want to immediately tell everyone we meet about our dear departed Leo (because, face it, that would just be plain weird), but in not doing so a significant part of our identity remains hidden. By not revealing this fundamental information it paradoxically highlights Leo's absence to us all the more.

Last fall, in Leo's honor, we planted a green mountain sugar maple tree on our family property -  The Farm as we call it.  We dug the hole and sprinkled some of Leo's ashes in amongst the the dirt and roots.  We staked the tree to keep it stable in the stiff breezes that blow across the open expanse.  During the cold and dark days of winter, I'd occasionally inspect Leo's tree to make sure it was fairing well.  In talking to Linda, I discovered that she, too, was doing the same.  Visiting Leo's tree, touching its trunk and caressing its branches is a way of communing with him.

Spring has finally sprung here in Connecticut and with the warmer weather I find myself outside at the Farm quite a bit more.  I have the opportunity to go to Leo's tree more and I do.  It brings me great comfort to see the new growth at the ends of the branches, the buds forming.  Soon the leaves will blossom.  I can't wait.  Yet even as I type this, the notion of the rebirth of Leo's tree fills me with mixd emotions.  I'm grateful for the symbolism embedded in nature's seasonal rebirth.  I am also more frequently aware that this tree which though it brings me so much serenity reminds me of the son that isn't in my arms.

Linda and I have undergone a tremendous amount of healing in the several months since Leo died.  Most hours of most days, you wouldn't, couldn't see the anguish that lies below the surface.  We can often have a normal conversation about Leo and get through it without the rush of emotion that used to be unpreventable.   But there are times when all of it comes at us with no warning.  Sometimes I wake up and feel the pendulant melancholy has returned, a sadness I owe and whose debt has come due.  Other times I feel right as rain, but then a scene in a darned Hollywood movie that, though the circumstances are vastly different, triggers familiar waves of sorrow.  I've never felt and earthquake, but understand that it can feel like the earth is undulating under foot.  This is how the grief sometimes feels.  One moment the ground beneath me is firm and then with little warning, it feels unstable, unpredictable, and I unsteady.

When I saw Linda weeping next to me on the couch and understood who the tears were for I didn't say anything.  I didn't know what to say.  Often there is nothing to say.  For a while we just sat there, adrift in our heartache.  Eventually Linda moved to get up, but I wasn't ready for her to leave the room.  I pulled her back down to the couch and we embraced each other for several minutes in silence.  I was trying to muster my strength to utter the only words that filled my head.  Each time I thought I was ready to speak, I couldn't bring them out.  I wanted to say the words without my voice cracking.  I wanted to say them in one breath.  I know not why, but it was important to me that I deliver them clearly, plainly.  I knew that they were the only words I'd be able to say that night.

"I miss him a lot."