Fall walking is the best. There is an excitement from the collision of cool morning air and bright sunshine. Dew-coated leaves glitter with brilliant colours. Fall gives Summer it's well-deserved rest. Fall is my favourite time of year. In Summer and Spring I ride my bike. In the Fall, I like to walk.
Lately I've been walking with a friend who is keen on marathons. Formerly a runner, he has taken to walking the half-marathon. Of late he has coerced me to be his walking partner (which I took in stride...). An hour or so during the week we would wander around the parks and quieter side streets around my neighborhood. Recently I had the opportunity to walk in a formal event, the Run for Heroes, to support caregivers of Alzheimers patients.
I've seen the effects of Alzheimers and honestly believe that there are worse things than Cancer. Alzheimers robs a person of their identity and their dignity. It places an enormous burden upon caregivers and family. Alzheimers removes that essence of humanity from the shell of our body.
The Run for Heroes is now in its second year. Its organizer has deep and personal connections to how Alzheimers affects the quality of life. From this adversity came the inspiration for the run, to honour those involved with the care of Alzheimer's patients. Not only has he organized a much-coveted Boston Marathon Qualifying course, but has made the mantra of the runners to be "Run for your Hero" -someone in life who inspires everyday courage in the face of astronomical odds. I figured it was time to do things in life beyond my own needs.
So in the cool pre-dawn of Sunday, September 23rd, I found myself with nearly 1,900 others, ready to begin a new journey. I've never seen so many people as eager to get started to do something as grueling as a marthon in all my life. The race began at 7:30am, the starting gun sounding like a canon. Actually the starting gun was a canon, a replica of the canon's used in Fort Malden during the War of 1812. Fittingly, the British at Fort Malden in the town of Amherstburg played a pivotal part in the war of 1812. Our Detroit neighbors were, for a brief time, British citizens!
So I picked as symbolic a first race to enter as I could - I canvassed for donations for the Run for Heroe's for the Alzheimer's society which was being held during the bicentennial anniversary of a pivotal point in North American history. I was pretty blase about the walk itself, initially, after all, I can walk 21Km no problem, right?
Walking the distance was never in doubt-now. But while I walked I thought about how I got to this point. I occurred to me, that on that same date - September 23rd, 2010, I was waking up in the ICU of Hotel DIeu Hospital. The day before saw me undergoing a Liver resection to remove a lobe that had visible tumours on it. Waking up in ICU meant I had survived the biggest surgery of my life. Memories of that morning came to me as I walked my half-marathon: my nurse getting me out of my bed, me crashing back as my blood pressure dropped, then: getting up again - my goal to walk five steps to the Nursing station, then five steps back to my bed. With the help and literal support of my nurse, I made that walk, barely. My recovery literally started with a ten-step program...
Two years later, I have stamina and strength and I'm walking with nineteen-hundred other people who are there for their own reasons and share a common cause. Proud as I am to survive my ordeal, I couldn't do it alone. I needed a lot of help and support. Now it's my turn, in my own small way, to return the favour as best as I can. I don't need to do it all, just what I can.
So I would finish my half-marathon in the modest time of two hours and fourty four minutes, a decent walking pace for 21Km. More importantly I had raised some pledges to be donated to the local Alzheimer's society. I had fun, and I felt good for doing it. Like all things worth doing in life, you have to embrace the moment and do what you can to make it happen.
September would finish with almost winter-like chill and overcast skies. But that Sunday morning, I walked in sunshine and warmth and my future is bright. I not only walked for the Alzheimer's Heroes, but for everyone who was there for me - and there were a lot of you! - you guys will always be my Heroes!
