The Coming Marathon

 
I don't think many days go by that I don't imagine standing on the Charleston Marathon starting line, thinking about all of this, what I've done to get there, and of my family and friends both present and in my heart. Some on the sidelines, some alongside, and some out of the reach of our hands.

I can see the crowd but not hear them, a low electrical humming. My fellow runners making conversation but minds scattered as we can't absorb the overload of anticipation, thought, and emotion of the day. Static dances along our limbs and crackles in our voices.

I see my left leg, the dominant one, rarely injured through exercise or accident. I look at the right, often injured and scarred and missing below the knee. The left wears a high tech running shoe; the right a higher tech carbon fiber running prosthesis we call a blade and I know as Jato.

I remember the accident. My deformed and aching right foot. Receding into memory. Part of me gone into forever.

I will want to shout, for us all to shout: IT IS A GOOD DAY TO RUN but speak the words softly to myself. Nothing is impossible. I will never quit. I will finish, whatever it takes, I will finish.

I will honor this day, this gift.

And I will run.


To life.