Natalie turns 26 this week. I tried to convince her it’d be super cool to run her first marathon this year. Run a mile for every year you’ve been alive. I dunno why she rejected my birthday commemoration idea. I mean who wouldn’t wanna run 26.2 miles to celebrate a momentous occasion? Okay, everyone put your hands down.
Fine. I’ll just have to run it for you.
My plan is to run 3 1/2 loops around the beautiful Morton Arboretum which is four minutes from Natalie’s apartment. I will stop first for coffee at my beloved Peet’s since Lisle, Illinois has the closest Peet’s this side of the Mississippi. I knew there was a reason God moved Natalie and Zach to Lisle.
The spring blooms are in full force now. I figured they would be given the blankets of little purple blossoms peeking out from the remnants of *snow we saw on our last visit in March. *Lisle is only 30 minutes from downtown Chicago. Besides the abundant evidence of spring, Morton also boasts some gentle rolling hills which I prefer over completely flat roads when running 26.2 miles. I’ll park my car in one of the lots along the 7.5 mile loop to serve as my aid station. No heavy hydration vest to schlepp on my back like my previous self-supported marathons. Also at-hand are nice, clean conveniently located restrooms if needed. I definitely won’t miss standing in those long porta-potty lines at races. Another bonus to running at Morton!
Good plan, right? Makes me appreciate even more all that goes into planning an actual race. Shout out to my awesome race director friends out there.
Speaking of plans, this past year was the year of be-ready-to-change-those-plans. My last in-person marathon was 2019 San Francisco. I was also registered for the Chicago Marathon, but it happened to fall exactly on the date my dad passed away in October. I had deferred my race registration to 2020 when I knew my dad’s time to cross his finish line here on earth was approaching. Of course, once Covid hit, all 2020 marathons were cancelled or switched to virtual which means you run wherever/whenever you want (before a set deadline) in one continuous segment, track and submit your finish time then they mail you your finisher’s shirt and medal afterwards. On dad’s heaven-versary October 13, 2020, I ran in my dad’s memory a full 26.2 miles from our house, to Main Street, to the local Monon Trail, to the White River bridge near the Indianapolis Art Institute, and back home. No drinking fountains available due to Covid, so hydration vest it was. Not a bad alternative plan to running the streets of Chicago.
I usually register early for races to take advantage of early bird pricing but also to put my training on the calendar as soon as possible. I had optimistically registered in December for the April 3, 2021 Carmel Marathon. It would be my seventh Carmel and 55th career marathon. My plan was to run one marathon every year coinciding with my age. Peak marathon training would hit during my favorite training weather and colder temps in February/March. Everything was going according to plan. Then I got a very unplanned call from my sister on February 4th.
“Mom has 4-5 days.”
What? I mean, we knew her health had declined with Alzheimer’s this last year, but we thought things were under control for awhile. My previous blogpost goes into way more detail, but basically we scrambled to get the family on a Zoom call that evening to say goodbye. The next morning, I got another unplanned call. Mom was gone.
Even though I was overwhelmed with gratitude for God’s timing which allowed me to “happen” to be in NorCal to see mom one last time, and completely at peace knowing she’s with my dad in eternal glory, I’m not sure I knew how to grieve or process it all. We did the best we could to honor mom via a Zoom memorial which enabled us to connect with relatives across the country and even Taiwan. Remembering all the logistics and expense that went into my dad’s memorial pre-Covid, perhaps my mom would’ve been happier with the convenience of Zoom. Ohhhhh, how she disliked anybody spending money on her or inconveniencing them in any way. Every birthday, Christmas, and Mother’s Day, I got the same call from Mom: “Don’t spend money on me!” No gifts, flowers, cake. Nope, she didn’t want any of it. But what she did cherish was seeing all of us. Spending time together. Laughing, singing, playing games, feeding us even though we were full.
Life after February 5th went on. Random little things reminded me of Mom. The day after she died, seeing a jar of peanut butter on our counter brought on a big, ugly cry. Ohhhhh, how Mom loved peanut butter. I had to pour through hundreds of old photos including Mom and Dad’s wedding album as I was putting together a Celebration of Life video. More ugly crying. Surprisingly, it was harder to write my speech for my mom than it was for my dad. The words just didn’t seem to come unlike with my dad’s speech where I had to trim it from almost 3,000 words to the final *1,168 delivered in-person at the church where he and Mom faithfully served for fifteen years. *I just now looked up that word count since I was curious. Funny that my mom’s speech ended up being 1,205 words. Not that I was counting.
1,205 words to sum up a life – 16 paragraphs, 74 lines. I worked hard to hold back the tears at paragraph 8, line 29, word 446: “Mom was my biggest cheerleader.” I was doing fine up until those words came out of my mouth and seemed to hang there in space both physically and virtually for an eternity. I must’ve somehow regained composure and finished my speech. It was all kind of a blur. The Zoom memorial came and went. Not sure what I expected to feel afterwards. Relief? Closure? More peace? Is there such a thing as “more” peace? I mean, if God gave me undeniable, COMPLETE peace the morning Mom went home to my dad and Jesus, how can I have MORE peace?
Don’t get me wrong; I haven’t been lying awake every night pondering this question. But very recently, it occurred to me that maybe I feel guilty for being okay after Mom died. So different from when Dad died. I was a wreck for what seemed to be a long time. I think after my dad died I actually tried harder to bounce back into life. I know, I know, circumstances were completely different with my dad. My sister and I had to pull it together for my mom who was now living alone in a senior home and not remembering why dad wasn’t around. Literally had to explain every time we saw her that dad was in heaven now.
As a former elementary school teacher, I’d come home every day completely drained – especially Fridays. Teacher friends, you know what I’m talking about. From the moment you step into your classroom until the moment you get home and the bra comes off (sorry guys), you’re in teacher mode. You’re literally “ON” all day with every minute accounted for including restroom breaks. After Dad died, I felt like I had to be “ON” every time I visited Mom. Even now I feel bad saying this but visits were not enjoyable as more often than not there were health and/or memory issues with which to contend. Some of the happier moments were that first Thanksgiving and Christmas when we brought the grandkids to visit and they became the focus. Or when my sister and I took her out for Chinese New Year and the dim sum she hadn’t had in years was the highlight.
I think I have fewer regrets with my mom. For a long time after my dad died, I truly felt like he’d be alive today IF (fill in the blank). If I had done more. If I had done (fill in the blank) sooner. This is where Scripture not only addresses my self-condemnation and answers my questions, but also puts me in my rightful place that I am not God. These two versions of Job 14:5 spell it out:
“Our time is limited.
You have given us only so many months to live
and have set limits we cannot go beyond.” NCV
“Mortals have a limited life span.
You’ve already decided how long we’ll live—
you set the boundary and no one can cross it.” MSG
Perhaps my dad dying first prepared me better for my mom’s death. Sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like had Mom gone first. You know what? God spared us a whole heap of heartache with His timing. Not to mention, had my dad lived the few more years I’d originally thought he would, Covid, quarantine, nursing home, Zoom, Parkinson’s…you get the picture. Good thing God didn’t go with my plans.
For the last few years, all I could think about was my dad’s Parkinson’s then my mom’s Alzheimer’s and all the logistics of both – then one day all of a sudden I didn’t have to worry about either anymore. I think it created a void. I’m no longer responsible for them. It’s like reverse empty nesting. After Natalie and Meagan left for college, I wrote a blogpost titled “Empty Nest or Emptiness.” Perhaps, full circle now.
Call it self-preservation or denial, I’ve tried not to think about this upcoming Mother’s Day. But as the day approaches, I can’t avoid the onslaught of TV commercials or Instagram posts reminding us to remember our moms as well as give them the gifts she’ll love. You know what? I never appreciated until now how Mom didn’t enjoy money being spent on her. If only we realized sooner how good we had it.
It didn’t quite hit me until this week why I’ve had a tough time jumping right back into things. Stuff like run club, social media, seeing friends, going to in-person church. Somehow jumping right back into life would feel like I’m done grieving. It would signal that I’m fine. I dunno…am I?
I really have no actual physical excuse for dropping my training for the Carmel Marathon. I just couldn’t get my heart and brain to go with the plan. I made the decision somewhat last minute to switch to the virtual race which would give me more time to actually train. But before that I kept going back and forth telling myself I didn’t care how slow my finish time would be due to lack of long run training weeks and I’d just slug it out come race day. But wisdom and better judgment prevailed. Not to mention, I had no desire to ride that struggle bus into one long suffer fest.
When I think about how to best remember my mom on this first Mother’s Day without her, I will focus on all her qualities that make me miss her today. Her love of nature and simple things like flowers and greenery. Her love of her grandkids and how she always asked about Natalie and Meagan as well how she loved going to all their school events and swim meets even though she worried they were getting too much sun, Ai-Ya! Her sacrificial acts like all those weekends she’d drive out to UCLA while terrified of the 405 freeway (who isn’t?) just to pick me up so I could be home for a day. Her concern that Dave was too handsome when I first showed her his photo because she was brought up to believe a handsome husband would not be loyal. Her thriftiness and obsession with clipping coupons as well as saving every disposable container known to mankind. Her love of singing especially to calm a screeching infant Natalie or completely changing the lyrics to my favorite 80’s songs. Her ability to give God praise in all circumstances like when we got that front row parking space in an overcrowded parking lot – “Thanks God!”
But the quality I will focus on and miss the most is that my mom was my best cheerleader. In my Celebration of Life speech, I said that Mom loved to say “WHY NOT?” It was her way of saying I could do anything. And she truly meant it. This weekend when I’m running my virtual Carmel Marathon around Morton Arboretum, I will remember my mom’s simple love of nature and those two words as I run my 55th marathon in her honor: WHY NOT? And I will do it all without spending any money.
“I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” Jeremiah 29:11 MSG