Boston Dreams
I never thought I’d have the chance to cross the Boston Marathon Finish line. Growing up north of Boston, Patriots Day was another day off school, and possibly the marathon was on the T.V. in the background if we remembered to turn it on. I wouldn’t have considered myself a fan during my younger years, but my dad, a die-hard Boston sports fan of all kinds, always seemed to know if a sporting event was on. Granted, his favorite team then, as now, is the Patriots, but he knew about this little race starting in Hopkinton and ending on Boylston. Fast forward to when I had my own kids, and the best exercise was to head out the door and jog a few miles around my adopted hometown in CT (close enough to practically be New York but still technically New England so I still could root for the right football team). Running has become such a part of my life that I could tell you that my marathon PR could get me qualified for Boston, albeit I’d have to wait 30 something years until I’m in my 70s. Instead, I chose another marathon goal to run 26.2 in each New England state. In 2014, my dad drove me to the start line of my first marathon just up the road from where I grew up in Massachusetts and I’ve not stopped since, completing a race in each state except Connecticut. I’ve run that distance here at home, just not in an official race. However, nothing is quite the same as toeing up to the start line with other runners starting on the same course and journey on a chilly morning, but Covid has made the past almost two years put a lot of dreams on hold. Especially for my dad.
Mid-October 2020 and my dad, only in his 70s, active since retiring just a few years before as a pipefitter, found himself with a strange sharp pain in his right calf. My mom drove him to the local hospital since it just didn’t feel right to him. She had to drop him off at the ER. The pandemic made even routine emergencies that much harder to bear. Our local hospital had to send him on into Boston for more care and he found himself in an ambulance heading south to the city. Thank goodness my siblings live relatively closer than I do to my parents and were able to be with him over those next few days. That pain turned out to be an aneurysm. If it gone up could have been a stroke and he’d have been gone. I guess he was lucky in that it went down and got caught in his leg. Except that meant, despite weeks of procedures to save his foot and then his leg, they had to amputate it on November 2. I never got to see him in the hospital that entire time due to Covid. We juggled kids switching to remote learning to reduce our exposure to the virus in the off chance that I could get out of CT and to MA for even a few hours to see him. But there was literally nothing I could do. So, I kept running. With lots of guilt. It was probably the worst feeling of my entire life as a runner. Here was something I loved to do, which gave me the inspiration to keep moving earlier on in the pandemic, however, I kept feeling like I shouldn’t get to take enjoyment in being able to put one foot in front of the other. But I did. I had this running streak I was more than 300 days into that I used to keep me moving. Some days it looked more like a slow crawl, but it kept me going.
It’s been a long year for my dad having to relearn basic life skills, reframe what life looks like and what comes next. From the first prosthetic appointment to continued physical therapy, he’s turned the corner from where he was. There are lows and highs though. From having to give up his boat because he realized how hard it would be to try to keep it to the more positive updates like relearning to drive a car with hand controls, it’s been quite a year. Back in March when the Virtual Boston Marathon option was being offered, I took it as a sign that I had one more marathon in me, and this could be my chance at a Boylston finish line, even if it wasn’t the real one I’ve only ever walked by.
So, I’m running the 125th Boston Marathon for my dad. We are trying to do it up in New Hampshire where I’ll run multiple loops of the dirt roads near the lake house. And maybe my dad might jump in for the last bit, or maybe just be waiting there at the finish line, either way works for me as long as they feed me after! Then, we will help them close up the house for the winter and cross our fingers that next summer we’ll be back there again enjoying family again unlike the past few summers when Covid has kept us limited in what we’ve been able to do. But even though we’ve slowed down, we just need to keep moving forward a bit at a time.
