Days 24 and 25 of Run 31. Two women, one weekend, and two daughters who made sure we knew their names – Shirley on Saturday, and Nana Kathy on Sunday.
Saturday, Day 24 – Shirley
Shirley was nominated by her daughter Marla, and the first thing Marla wanted us to know had nothing to do with cancer.
“She is remembered for her smile, her warmth, and her sensitivity. Family was her happy place.”
– Marla, about her mom
Kind, caring, giving. A full heart of love for her children, her grandchildren, and the love of her life – Marla’s dad. The kind of friend you could always count on.
And then here’s the part of Marla’s note that stays with you, because of the way she chose to tell it. A list of all the times her mother didn’t give up:
“My mom never gave up on life. Not after my dad passed away in 2001. Not when she was first diagnosed in 2002. Not when she was in remission in 2004. Not when it came back in early 2010, which was the cause of her passing a few months later.”
Widowed in 2001. Diagnosed the next year. Remission by 2004 – six years of it. Then it came back, and a few months later she was gone.
In Marla’s words, she left a hole in their hearts that can never be filled.
What Marla does every year now
Because of the documented breast cancer in her family, Marla has gotten checked every single year since she turned 45.
“I won’t say they are enjoyable, but it does make me channel my mom, now that she’s gone.”
If you need a reason to make the appointment you’ve been putting off, there it is. One of the daughters in this story turned her grief into a standing annual date with her own health – and she thinks about her mother every time she goes.
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Sunday, Day 25 – Nana Kathy
Kathy’s daughter Sierra is a distance runner. When her mom was diagnosed, Sierra was about to run 50 miles through the desert near Bryce Canyon – her first and only ultra past 50k.
Somewhere out there, in one of the low points that distance always finds, she ended up sobbing about her mother. Her family had just been through cancer treatment with her dad. She found herself wondering whether him surviving meant her mom wouldn’t. Wondering which version of this she’d get herself someday. Wondering whether running races meant anything at all, considering what her mom was about to face.
Eventually somebody handed her a quesadilla and she carried on. She finished that race on borrowed trekking poles, and found out at the hospital the next day that she’d been right about her feet.
Her mom, meanwhile, took on all of it – the appointments, the hair loss, the endless medications, the mastectomy recovery – and came out the other side as the most positive version of herself.
“She completed the ultra marathon that no one willingly signs up for.”
– Sierra, about her mom
That’s the line that stuck with us. Runners pick their hard thing. We sign the waiver, we choose the distance, we know roughly where the finish line is. Kathy got none of that, and she finished anyway.
Today she gets to be Nana Kathy to Sierra’s three-year-old son, and the two of them are each other’s favorite people. Sierra ran 31 this month for her mom.
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Shirley and Kathy – this weekend was yours. And to Marla and Sierra: thank you for writing it down and handing it to us. That isn’t an easy thing to do.
Run for them. Get screened for you.
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