I'll be participating in the Western Mass Mother’s Day Half Marathon this May to raise funds for the Cancer Connection, in memory of my mother, Terry who passed away in December 2017 after battling cancer.
This will be my second year at the race, but this time I'll be taking it a little slower. If you watched me limp across the finish line last year, you know that my right knee had a real problem with miles 8 through 13.1. Several of us on Team Terry will be walking the 9-mile course instead of running the half, but I hope you'll still be able to support the team and donate to the Cancer Connection!
Last year I trained and ran this race because I was desperate to put my sadness and numbness to some good use - a positive, forward-looking project in support of an organization that Mom loved and depended on. She would've been happy to see how much we raised, even though she would definitely have told me "Save your knees, do the walk instead!"
It's been almost a year and a half since we lost Mom, and I think of her all the time. In Joan's Saturday morning spin class, there's a song that always makes Joan and I think of Mom, and we smile, and sometimes we tear up a little, and keep riding anyways. If you knew Mom, you'll know why the song's refrain "One foot in front of the other" brings her to mind. When she was healthy, her greatest joy was hiking, taking the dogs for a walk, getting in some exercise for herself even though she worked on her feet all day long. When she was sick, she showed the rest of us how to handle it - with grace, with calm determination, and with one foot in front of the other.
When Mom was first diagnosed in 2015, the Cancer Connection helped her understand and prepare for her treatments in a warm group of friends. During and after her treatments, the Cancer Connection helped her relax with reiki and massages. Before her cancer returned in 2017, she was taking rowing classes on the Connecticut River and going to gym classes, all organized by the Cancer Connection. The Cancer Connection helped her tackle every struggle head-on, and I'm so grateful that they made the toughest years of her life, and our lives, more bearable.
You can hear Mom talk about all this and more in this video from Monty's Campout for the Cancer Connection in 2016.
Donations will support the Cancer Connection, which offers its services free of charge to all. I hope you'll donate so that other families can continue to access the help and friendly support they need to work through difficult times.
Thank you!
Em