A year ago today, my friend Becca and I were in Miami getting ready to board a huge cruise ship for a weeklong vacation with no agenda except rest, relaxation, and spending time with each other in the Caribbean.  Becca is an occupational therapist and had just worked through the Christmas holidays and I was about to go back to teaching the spring semester. This was the one week where our schedules worked so we booked ourselves a mental health vacation.

In many ways, this trip was kind of a crazy endeavor.  Becca is quite a bit younger than me, but is willing to hang out with this old lady.  And, what areas two ladies with albinism doing heading to the Caribbean beaches for vacation?  What else? We were working on our winter tans. :-). Our only real worry about this trip was our rendezvous in Miami.  Becca was flying from Illinois and I from Dallas.  Winter weather can be tricky with regard to air travel.  I ended up leaving Dallas on an earlier flight than originally scheduled to avoid weather that was predicted to move into our area.  Fortunately, Becca had no problems at all flying out of the Midwest.  We both arrived without incident and spent the first evening of our vacation in Miami, enjoying beautiful views, delicious food, and good company.

The next morning, our hotel provided a shuttle to the port. Once we checked out and had a leisurely breakfast, we were on our way to set sail.  We dropped our bags and made our way through immigration.  This is where we hit our first bump of the trip.

Literally as we were on the gangplank making our way on to the ship, Becca received a call from her sister telling her that her five year old nephew had had a playground accident at school the day before that had caused him some belly pain.  After two trips to the emergency room, it was determined that the pain was the result tumor on his kidney.  All of the sudden, our relaxed trip became stressful.

Once onboard the ship, our first stop was to sign up for Internet service.  It was comforting to know that Becca could remain in constant communication with her family as decisions about her nephew’s care were being made quickly.  As it turned out, because we had made no plans for this cruise other than to relax, it was a good place to process all that was happening.  By the time we returned to Miami a week later, the little guy had already had surgery to remove his kidney and had become a patient of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, where his chemo, radiation, and recovery would take place.

Shortly after our trip, Becca, who is a real runner having marathons, made the decision to form a team to run the last part of the St. Jude’s Run, which ends in Peoria, IL.  The run is a huge fundraiser for St. Jude’s.  Because I had “walked” this journey with Becca through her nephew’s first week as a cancer patient, my heart wanted to join her on the team and run.  My body said, “There is no way that is ever going to happen!”  I resigned myself to the fact that the best I could do was to make a monetary contribution to the team’s goal.  I know that ultimately the fundraising is what is important, but I wanted to be able to run.

I thought that maybe between mid-January and the run in July I could get my act together and train; but, I had no idea how to go about that safely and effectively.  Then COVID hit.

The in-person race did not happen in 2020.

This gave me more time.

In September, Hudson finished his cancer treatment and I made the real commitment to start running so that I can run the St. Jude’s race in 2021.  I found a training program that works for me and have stuck with it.  If that little five year old boy is strong enough and brave enough to battle cancer, I am strong enough and brave enough to get my self out there and work hard and run…for Hudson and all the other families that have been cared for by St. Jude, at no cost to them.

So, on my 60 By Sixty list is to do the St. Jude run with Becca.  At this point, because of COVID, a decision about an in-person race has not yet been made for this year.  The entire race is from Memphis to Peoria, 465 miles.  If it happens, I will make every effort to run the last leg into Peoria.  If the race doesn’t happen in-person, or if travel is not safe, I will run it virtually.  

On my list of things to do this year are several other running related things, but it is where I was on this day last year that has gotten me where I am today with my running goals.

The universe sometimes has funny ways of showing us our path.