The Victory Lap
(Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation) Race for the Cure
I saw it on their website
one day,
way back in the spring,
when you were
in the beginning of the shock of it all:
the diagnosis,
the first treatments,
and no taste left,
tiredness and weakness
in your very active body,
which wasn't used to feeling that way.
If anyone is the energizer bunny,
it's you.
That day, I made a vow to myself
to run this race
FOR you
because I thought that come November,
the way treatment was scheduled,
you would be too weak to run.
The race I thought I was crazy to run.
Alone.
No team of family or of friends to join.
I hadn't even done any fundraising.
Standing there about to begin,
wondering what I had to prove,
what statement I was trying to make.
Because here you are Dad,
on the other side of MM now
the remission side.
But back in the spring,
we didn't know we would be here so quickly!
So the race became the victory lap,
like at NASCAR.
The thanksgiving race,
The race of honor,
to celebrate the victory.
That's what this compulsion was.
I
HAD
TO
RUN
IT
It didn't matter if I had no one by my side,
not a single person there that I knew,
because I was familiar with what these people felt,
the ones running for a loved one.
Listening to Rend Collective's upbeat album Art of Celebration,
a perfect anthem for this race, the victory lap. Songs like "Joy," "My Lighthouse," and "More than Conquerors." Songs that I played and sung over and over this summer, praying for you.
This summer, it felt like fall or winter,
like the cold, grey morning in November,
when I ran this race.
The path started out flat,
with me almost tripping over the photographer lying in the middle of it.
I found it hard to find my pace
in this small sea of people,
just like you found it hard to find your new pace of life.
Uphill to cross the bridge,
I know there were many moments for you
when it seemed ALL uphill,
Then I hit the turnaround point - halfway.
When you were at the halfway point of the first treatment,
you found out that the medication,
"God's agent to destroy the cancer cells,"
was working amazingly well!
All the while,
in YOUR almost daily runs,
you ran that disease right off you.
Running faster downhill,
speeding things up.
Finally, the home stretch,
flat path back to the finish line.
The race I had to run, going back in my mind through the events of the late spring and summer months. And thanking You, Father God, for it all. I had to remember. Just like the writer of Psalm 77:11-12, remembering:
I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your miracles of long (or not so long) ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on Your mighty deeds (they are constantly in my thoughts; I cannot stop thinking about them).
On a side note, how Father God brings me laughter in this? The name of the company, a few states from here who has been in business 90 years, that printed the race bibs is same as the name of the very small town in Washington that my Dad lives in!
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