Being reminded

We humans tend to take life's basics -- running, walking, snort-laughing, listening, friends, music, raincoats, children, parents, pets, pasta, thunderstorms, sunshine, soup, silence -- for granted. This isn't a particularly bold or astute observation; still, it's one that needs to be pointed out at least a bit more often.

Tomorrow, you can be the one to do so. But today, it's my turn. Or, more accurately, it is that of a total stranger, one who didn't even realize she was taking a turn.

She came into Run On, the running store where I work, on Saturday. Truth to tell, if she walked right into my dining room right now, I probably wouldn't recognize her. But I do remember her story.

She sat down across from me in the store and told me her feet hurt. No wonder; she had just walked around White Rock Lake in shoes she knew needed replacing. If she were to do the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon on March 14, she told me, she'd better buy some new ones.

"You're running the half?" I asked. "How exciting!"

"Oh, I'm not running it," she said. "I'm walking. It'll be my fourth half-marathon. I do it with Team N Training."

(TNT is a program in which participants raise money to fight blood cancer and support patients. In turn, they are trained by certified coaches for various events across the country.)

"I've heard such wonderful things about that program," I said. "If you don't mind I ask, how did you happen to get involved with it?"

"My husband and son both have had forms of blood cancer," she said.

"Oh my gosh," I said. "How are they doing?"

"My husband had a bone-marrow transplant 16 months ago," she said. "He's had some complications, but he's doing OK. My son died last September."

"Oh no," I said. "I am so so sorry."

"He was 35. He had a wife and a precious 3-year-old daughter."

I was tying her shoes while she talked, tying them very slowly and deliberately, wondering whether I would start to cry if I said anything. I finished, patted her shoes, put my hands on my legs and sat up straight.

"What a beautiful tribute you're doing for them," I said.

"Thank you," she said. "I love it. I know it means a lot to my husband, and that it meant a lot to my son."

She smiled, paid for her shoes and a pair of socks, and walked out the door. She wasn't trying to make a point, or to teach a lesson, or to remind me not to take life for granted. She was just someone doing what those who meant the world to her could not do -- walk. Because she can, and because she loves them very much.

Running commentary

I haven't asked her about this in awhile. Still, I am fairly certain that on the days that she works, my mother still jots down snippets to share with my dad when she gets home.

(Click here to read what I wrote about her a few years back).

When I work at the running store, I meet all sorts of interesting people. Like Mom says, everyone who walks through the door -- runner, walker, neither -- has a story. As we talk, I think I'll remember what each one had to say. But (surprise) I don't.

So I followed Mom's lead and started jotting down a few notes myself the last week or so. Here's who -- mostly for better, maybe one not so much -- I want to remember.

1. The pilot. She was laid off from her job as a corporate pilot about the same time I lost my job. Her smile was beautiful; her attitude optimistic. But when she started talking about aviation -- about why she loves to fly and why she misses it so -- her eyes filled with passionate tears. I recognized them, because once in awhile (less than I thought I would, really), I get that way about writing.

2. The half-marathon walker. As I fitted him with shoes, I think he told me four times that he weighs 260 pounds. What I liked about him, though, was that he finished last in a half-marathon last year.
"That is so cool," I said. "You finished it. And somebody had to be last."
"Yeah," he said, "once I got to the Katy Trail, I turned around and there were four police cars right behind me, just waiting to be able to open the road again. One of the police officers got on his radio and said, 'He just started on the Katy Trail.'
"When I crossed the finish line, everyone there shook hands with me."
"See?" I said. "They didn't do that for the person who finished next to last."

3. The Breast Cancer 3-Day walker. One of those women who's so naturally pretty you try not to stare at her, she walks faster than many people run. When I asked how she happened to start doing the 3-Day (did she have a family member with breast cancer?) she told me this:

"My husband's mother died of breast cancer when she was 40 years old. I decided that when I turned 40, I'd do the 3-Day for her, and keep doing it for every year she missed. I'm 47 now, and I'll keep walking for it as long as I can."

4. That uh, other guy. Ten minutes after we locked the doors and midway through his shoe try-on, his phone rang. He answered it, asked me for a pen and paper, walked to a nearby table, and spent a good five minutes talking and taking notes.

By that time (truth be told and despite what my mother says) I wasn't in the mood to hear the story of this chap with the name so Biblical I thought he made it up. Not that his extra thumb that had to be removed grew back more than a decade later...necessitating another amputation. Not that he wanted to bring a friend in to help him choose shoes -- someone who (apparently unlike me) could explain shoe technology to him.

So I smiled, walked him to the door, unlocked it to let him out. I felt a little dazed. Quite frankly, I still do.

Swilling champagne & chilling shrimp

I stopped at Sprouts on New Year's Eve and left with a pound of boiled shrimp. The significance didn't hit me till I got home, unwrapped the package and started eating this longtime favorite treat of mine.

When I was growing up, cold, boiled shrimp signified New Year's Eve as much as black-eyed peas and resolutions. It was my brothers' and sisters' and my favorite part of our parents' New Year's Eve party...one of the few kid-friendly offerings we could nab when nobody was looking.

The parties were legendary. People (some invited, some not) danced. Champagne flowed. People danced because champagne flowed. The dignified SMU dean who lived down the block walked his wife home...then appeared at our front door after making sure she was asleep. On many a New Year's Day, we'd find party-goers in the bushes, sleeping off the previous evening's frivolity.


Tonight, I eat my shrimp and think about those parties, wondering when and why they ended. Only in retrospect do I realize what irreverently raucous evenings those were...ones that, depending on my mood and my level of loneliness, I'd kind of like being part of.

A waiting crate; awaiting fate

I knew Macho would be gone, adopted to his permanent family, by the time I got home from work on Saturday. Still, when I opened the front door, I glanced toward the dining room, half expecting to see the big lug ambling over to greet me. He'd even started wagging his tail (a huge step) upon my arrival.

But alas. On the floor by the front window were the blue quilt and the white one. There were the two Milk Bones he never really liked.

Then I saw the crate (the HUGE crate, I might add) in the kitchen. My heart jumped. Maybe his new family had had second thoughts! Maybe they were still iced in! (despite temperatures that had climbed above the freezing point). Maybe maybe maybe...

Or, the most likely maybe of all, it awaits our next foster dog. One the cats might hide from for 36 hours before garnering their bravado, their affection, their awe for this big ol' lummox. One who loves a quilt fresh from the dryer, a little peanut butter mixed with his food. One whose soulful eyes have seen more than we really need or can bring ourselves to know.

Meanwhile, the crate is empty. The front window is, too. But after my runs, I still glance at it, expecting to see the face that, for two precious weeks, welcomed me home.

Loving Molly. Always.

I admit I have not been a good friend to Molly. I used to walk by her yard almost every day, bringing her three Milk Bones. I'd talk to her, telling her what a good girl she was. She'd wag her tail, trotting to one spot to take the first, another for the second, the last for the third.

I'd say, "OK, Molly, have a good day. Love you," and walk home.

But the last few times I'd seen her, she hardly moved. I'd still talk to her, still drop bones in her yard.  She looked thin, and it broke my heart to see her and feel so helpless. One day I put a bowlful of dog food mixed with an egg in her yard. But mostly, I am beyond ashamed to say, I'd avoid her yard. But today on the way to church, we were running late and so drove right by her house.

In the chain link fence, I saw three white flowers. And I knew. I started to cry. My son put his hand on my shoulder. He squeezed it; he rubbed it; he kept it there till we were almost to church.

"It's OK Mom," he kept saying. "It's OK."

She was a beautiful dog, a white German shepherd. She was friendly and sweet, wagging her tail for kids going to the elementary school a hundred yards away, brightening more lives than she ever knew.


I am trying to console myself thinking she is in a much better place, a place where someone pets her and loves her even when school isn't in session. A place where someone takes her on walks, and lets her run off the leash, knowing she'll always come back to them.


Click here to read what I wrote about her six years ago. Godspeed, Molly. Love you.