Running 50

RACE RE-CAP

I'm not exactly sure when I decided to run 50 miles. It was somewhere between "I want to run my age" and "I want to do an impossible thing." It was probably more on edge of the impossible.

People ask me why, I think they fear I'm running from something. Part of it is the training. It's time to be outside, to process through things and let them run out my feet, and to listen to books, which is a luxury small children don't afford you often. Part of it is that I love it. Part of it is that I always want to push myself, but one of the largest parts is that I want the two little humans who call me mom to know they can do anything they want to. Even the impossible thing if they're willing to work for it.

The week before the ultra I spent in backwoods Maine with 23 teenagers, lack of sleep, and 25 miles paddling on a river. Several of the kids were sick and I tried my best to keep up my immune system to no avail. Come Thursday I had a seriously sore throat and sinus congestion. The night before the ultra I couldn't breath. But...I didn't train hours on end and push myself this far to be stopped by a sinus infection. I was running. So I shot my nose up with spray and attempted to sleep. I always tell my cross country kids not to make excuses. Better practice what I preach.

Sunday morning was freezing. Our tech meeting was at 5:30 am and the ultra runners were huddled around bum barrels outside the main tent waiting for the waves of bikers to go. In so many regards I'm not an ultra runner. These people intimidate me. They know all the most trendy gear and have stories of epic 100 milers...here's me. Nothing but my own two legs, some trail runners purchased online, and an attempt at something over 32 miles. Everyone at the pit had done it before. The seasoned veterans. I ask about hydration. My plan was to rely on the aid stations and not carry anything...but there isn't another soul that I can see with that strategy. Great.

People are talking about the trail. This is really the first time I've heard much about it. I know everyone has their style. Dustan loves to analyze things. It makes him happy. He feels prepared and ready with a clear picture of what he has to tackle. I like to blindly come out swinging. Dustan has already analyzed this trial. He knows all the stats I'm sure, but when he asks me if I want to know I tell him not to tell me. I don't want to know. The logic is that I don't want to get into my own head and psych myself out. I just want to take it as it comes. It's "hilly" I've heard. Cool, change in terrain. Makes it interesting. Wow. I had no clue.

Finally our wave is called. No order of placement, I'm just eager to begin so I'm on the front. Not sure what I feel. Excitement yes, focus...well. I'm not really sure where that is. I'm not thinking about running 50 miles. In my head I'm saying. "Let's go for a run Heather." Like its a weekend run through my hometown or something. But it calms me. Anyway, I've got some time to figure out how I feel about this whole thing...I'll just run it out and find my focus. A veteran eases my fears. "Here's the secret to the 50" he says. Like there's only one 50 and its this 50. "Everybody is slow and no one knows a -— about pace" Good to know.

I've written 1-50 on a post it. It's crumpled in my hand. 50 prayers for each mile. Kids I love, people I love, situations that need attention. That'll keep me going too I think. In the other hand a paper towel to blow my nose into and release the constant pressure. Usually I breath through my nose on my long runs after my heart rate settles. Ain't happening today.

In case of failure, I've set myself some micro goals. Run my age and be positive and encouraging to as many people as I can.

It's a 1, 2, 3 go! Seems sort of anti climatic. Hurry up and go...for like...ever.

First few miles I'm listening to the people around me. It almost immediately becomes hilly and I want to know if they are breathing hard or if they have super human oxygen intake. Most of them are breathing hard so that's good.

I'm into it now....Ok, maybe I should have looked at some of the stats. This is not hilly...it MOUNTAINOUS. No really it is. I will find out later that it has 9,000 ft elevation gain. That would be one thing. But it's also technical. Roots, rocks, tiny little snaky dirt tracks.  Some places are really not practical to run, its more like a scramble. My eyes are watching my feet. I keep reminding myself to pick my feet up. But for all the struggle the views are amazing. The verdant mountains of Vermont. Farms, fields, woods. Rich beauty.

The first few aid stations are well stocked and enthusiastic. Mile 15 I see Dustan which is great. I strike up conversations with the people I pass. One man is probably 65 years old with white hair and a Viking red beard. He runs with a bow legged gait and an exaggerated arm swing almost as if he'd had a stroke. He says he has run two 100 milers, three 50 milers, and several 50ks just in this year. "I may be over doing it" he says. Really!? I'm impressed.

Kim hears me tell someone I have twins and she tells me her daughter has three month twins. We swap observations and stories for a while. She did the Vermont 100 back in July. I'm in awe. That's the thing about ultra running. It levels the playing field. Females can beat males, age is not an issue...its something more than that. It's endurance and grit. There aren't any flashy attention seekers out here. It's not a glamorous sport. You've got to be very ok with being alone with yourself for hours on end. No cheering sidelines. Just grueling miles of arguing with your head that you can indeed do one more step.

Mike and I are running similar paces. He's an ironman and has a daughter that runs marathons with him now. This is his first 50. We keep tagging each other and than moving on or behind to find each other again.

The first half is insane. Mountains...more then one. Up and down...technical and grueling. I'm in pain from every bone in my foot, to my quads, and persistent re-accruing hip injury. My body at mile 30 is starting to shut down. I don't think there was ever a time I was close to quitting. But there was a time when I couldn't see the end in my mind. I could only see that I was barely making my feet move. I pop out of the woods on a ski run and look down hill. There at the bottom I see two little people in overalls. I can hear them screaming...I know who they are. They are my reasons. The woman besides me asks why I'm crying. I laugh/sob that I see my babies and I have to get the tears out now. I'm not sure why I'm crying. Perhaps fatigue, perhaps it's because I know they'll be my saving grace at this wall...in ultras there is not one wall. There are several. They are jumping and screaming and holding signs that say, "run mom run!" And "go mom go!" It's kisses and hugs and quick greetings. I'm stocking up in the aid station and realize I'll need to run out of this thing because these little blue eyed beauties are watching me. My mom, the ever watchful worrier wants to know if I want pain killers. She'll get some for the next station. Great idea! I ask the people at this aid station and they give me some. That will end up making a huge difference in a few miles. I turn to start my muscles...and I hear my girls cheering. I don't know how exactly I did it , but I started those legs and ran up out of that station. That was it for me. My wall. The second half went faster than the first and I felt strong.

Mile 40 I meet my pacer Adelita...she was waiting for me and I felt like she was made of sparkling precious gold. She kept me moving. Period. She talked to me and made those miles pass like a Sunday jog. Ok, maybe not quite like that. Mile 46 I see Dustan and the girls again...at this point it's starting to dawn on me that I'm going to run 50 miles today. I come into the aid station and say "it's a good day to run 50 miles!!" It sure is. Kim is there. She's peeling off her shirt to run into the finish with an insane sports bra six pack. Grammy six-pack. I tell her she's a beast. She beams.

Three miles out I hear someone say. "Is that Heather?" It's Mikes pacer and apparently Mikes been telling him they had to catch me. They did. Mike hollers..."I think you're going to make it Heather!" I think so too Mike. "You are too!" He passes me. I slap him on the back, you gain a connection with people out here.

They start counting down the miles on cardboard signs. I'm starting to hear the finish line. Something asks me in my head if I could do more. I decide my body could do another 20 or so if someone was holding a gun to my head before I'd collapse...but no one is, so I'll be collapsing on that finish line.

It opens up in a ski slope for the last half mile. A bit of a back and forth till the end. I see Mike. I open up my legs....I let them run. I'm passing people, I'm closing in. I come up behind Mike and say, "I'm really sorry about this Mike, but I'm gonna pass you!" And I fly by him. All I hear is "are you kidding me!". I laugh, yell, and cry a little as I go over that finish line. I did it. I ran 50 miles.

 It's hugs all around, a metal on my neck. But it's those two little humans jumping up and down squealing and clapping. They get it. Mommy just did an impossible thing. If only they knew, it's all for them. Mike is coming up behind me. I give him a hug and tell him. "We did a thing Mike. We did a thing" he smiles, we know something...and it's a thing. And it's running the Vermont 50. He tells the girls that their mommy kicked his butt. They giggle.

20 mins later and slightly chilled I attempt to get myself upstairs to the shower at the lovely air bnb we are staying at. All the endorphins and adrenaline has abandoned me and my body goes into shock. I'm locked down and convulsing. I can't open a bottle to take pain killers. I can't make myself do anything. I'm in incredible pain. Dustan has to put me in a hot bath, it's only then I stop shaking. I don't sleep well...to much pain...but I'm satisfied. I wasn't fast. 11 hours. I averaged 12-13 min miles when you figure in the aid stations. I'm ok with that. I did it.

Next morning at breakfast our host comes down to say goodbye. She says that she told her husband I had run 50 miles and he didn't believe her. Said that it must have been 15 miles because that's impossible, especially for a girl. Emmie and Ellie's eyes widen and they look at me. I laugh and say..."you tell your husband...(and they don't know it but I'm talking to the two little hearts I grew under my own)...that girls can do whatever they want to do."

To Dance With Pain

I felt it come around mile 19...sure and steady, I knew it would...hello old friend.With every foot strike I felt jarring blunt pain shoot up my leg. With every uneven grass patch the tendons in my ankles screamed in utter fatigue. My hips felt deeply torn. My thighs screaming for rest, for oxygen...my whole body was making more lactic acid then it could expel and I felt it build inside and threaten me. Hello old friend.

So I took its hand and danced a little tango with pain...we after all, have a deep relationship. I've sat silently with it in hospital rooms, its arm draped around my shoulders. I've walked beside it as I sought to hold on to expectations stolen from me and lost to circumstances. It's knelt with me in tears as I tried to pick up shattered pieces of my heart and make them into something, anything worthwhile. It has held me in helplessness, and been my companion in silence...pain and I, we know each other well...and I have much to thank you for old friend...it has given me this day, the ability to run this race, and run well.

I never realized as clearly as I did in this last race, how much heart is in my running. Maybe because there never has been so much reason to run. To live, to move. I'm 30 years old, young, but sometimes my heart feels old...pain has done that to me. But pain has also given me something I must thank it for. Endurance, fearlessness. You see, pain has never killed me...it has come, I have met it, looked it in the eyes, and moved on. It's through pain that I have learned a deeper love, a clearer priority, and reason to live. I have nothing to show for peace. We learn so little from comfort. So now, when the siren call for rest and comfort rings deep in my ears, I smile. I'd rather dance with pain, run with it, learn what it has to teach me...then lie in comfort. I do not fear it...I let it grow me.

I've seen it grow others too. It's done its powerful work of conditioning in my childhood companion Courtney. I won't try to pretend that I could ever understand the way pain must have lived his everyday as he watched his infant son fight for life and as he laid him to rest before his second birthday. Pain is a cruel teacher...but in the following year, I've watched Courtney run...13, 13's, in 2013 for his son...and he ran, not just ran...won. Because when you meet pain like that, when you feel it so deeply and you make it out alive...when you let it grow you and you live life open. It gives you something...strength. To battle to the end. To meet it and not fear it. To keep moving because in moving we live, we grow, we learn, we endure, we overcome.

So in the end if I go painfully and slow...don't worry about me. It's just my old friend and I in a slow dance...we might take it a few times around the room for old times sake, I might hold on to it a little longer before I go, to feel it again, to learn what I can...because you see...it'll be our very last dance.

The Misfit Mudder

His shirt said, “Misfit Mudder” and he certainly fit the bill. Probably 300 pounds with excess skin hanging on his under arms and chin that showed he had recently been heavier, slightly balding, and totally alone. No other misfit mudders around him, no cheering squad on the sidelines. Alone. Misfit.

In an event that touts itself as one of the toughest events on the planet, one where you promise to put your team mate before your course time, the infamous "Tough Mudder".  I had to wonder how he had got there? The second to the last obstacle, finish line in sight without a team in an incredibly physically draining event, even for the most endurance seasoned. 

I watched casually at first as he tried to run up the half pipe slicked down with water and mud at an incline that aimed to decelerate. A group of shirtless fitness junkies had spotted him and stopped to reach for his hands as he threw himself up. But his feet lost traction and the dead weight of his body was to much to hoist even for them. He fell without even the strength to catch himself face down in the mud. Un-moving, arms and legs splayed out. He finally would move again, drag his massive body to standing and back up to try again. The run, the fall, the hit and roll. The crowd started to notice, they moved in closer to cheer him on, the men on the top started concentrating their efforts in new and creative ways…but on the third fall I saw something in his face that was more dangerous than fatigue, it was hopelessness. And something inside me felt it too.

It is the human story it seems, at times, the fight to hard, the handicap to great, the fatigue too much, you surface only long enough to see the next wave of overwhelming proportions cresting for the kill, you’re going under and the giving up seems welcome relief from the struggle…and he was giving up. His head going under for the last time… and something in me rose up. 

How many times had I felt my own demons of naysayers? How many times have I depended on another hand, on hope, on my deep seeded innate belief in the power of the human spirit? How many times have I been saved from my own failures by a God that believes in turning weakness into strength? How many times has that same God sent the help, sent the words, sent a hand to pull me out?  

In my mind came clarity of purpose. Get him over the obstacle. There was no other option. He hit the mud again at the base of the ramp and I hurdled myself over the boundary flags and hit it too. I got down in his face. Put my hand on his back and said, “you’ve got this, you’re an inspiration to so many people here, you can’t give up.” He slowly raised his head…silent and unspeaking, emotions raw on his mud smeared face and stared at me. He looked done, but I wasn’t done. I knew if he was here, he had to have fight. I knew he wanted it. I knew he had it inside of him. And I knew he couldn’t give up.

I put out my hand and braced myself as he leaned heavily into it. And as we rose the crowed rose too, the collective battle cry of all of us who have been a misfit mudder, his fight was all our fight and we each had a part to play in it. I squared his shoulders with both hands and pulled myself up on my tiptoes to look him in the eyes and told him he had it in him. Told him everyone here wanted him to do this, everyone was cheering him on, they believed in him.

We backed up to the starting, I told him I’d run with him, told him to get his feet up high trust the hands…and we ran. Somehow, this man moved his huge body forward, he really put his heart into it, I ran with him and the crowed accelerated with energy, we willed him up, willed him forward. He hit the incline grabbed the hands and lost his footing. Smashing his head against the wall in the process, I think it stunned him a bit and he let go, rolling brutally down into the mud again. The whole crowed groaned with him and then was very silent. I think they were wondering if he’d get up, but I wasn’t wondering. Of course he was getting up.

He silently shook his head as I knelt beside him. And to his wordless negative I answered, “no, you’re going to do it, try again, you’ve got this in you”. He came to his knees and by how the crowd responded you’d think a man just rose from the dead. And honestly in that moment I think I did see him rise from the dead, I saw a spark come alive, he believed me. We backed up again, we ran again, and he fell again. But this time, this time I knew we had already won, because he was quicker in rising and his eyes had hope.

As a young child I remember watching Apollo 13 and thinking that the fight of the human spirit makes men do the impossible, it tints everything with hope. It settled in me and drives me to this day; it fuels my own endeavors and fills my ministry. My battle cry is, and always will be…HOPE.  

Six times he fell. Six times he failed. Six times. On the sixth time I washed down his hands and arms with a water bottle someone handed me. The mud was making it hard for the shirtless junkies to grasp. I told him he had to only get one leg high enough for someone to grab it. I told him to pull back on the hands that held him and just get his leg higher. The crew at the top had thickened and grouped into a mass of hands and hearts ready to help. The crowed at the bottom had thickened and grouped into a pulsating mass of heartfelt encouragement. I told him this was it. I asked him his name but it was lost in the den of screaming and chanting. No matter, his name is mine, his name is yours, his name is all of us who have faced our own wall.

I screamed, “GO, GO, GO!!” and we ran. He hit the incline, he grabbed the hands that reached for him  and this time he leaned back and got that foot, that one foot, two feet higher…Two feet, that’s all he needed. Someone had his knee, another man flung his torso over the edged his legs pinned down by another man to grab the second leg, and through human spirit, muscle power, and deafening cheering…he did it. We did it.

There hasn’t been many times I’ve cried from joy, but a choked sob broke my scream, and I felt the waves of pride, and gratefulness, and relief wash me. It was simply,  one of the purest emotions of sheer joy I have ever felt. And I realized I was standing alone at the bottom of a ramp with probably 300 people around me… sobbing. I quickly pulled down my sunglasses and hopped the boundary flags because crying at the Tough Mudder is against the rules. But I didn’t get far. A woman with as many tears as I stopped me, “did you know him?” I shook my head no, but somehow felt that that wasn’t entirely true. I did know him, because I knew his struggle.  She said, “that was incredible and I can’t stop crying”. I glanced around me and realized that no one was untouched, many were crying, most were still jumping up and down and still screaming, the men on the ramp were gorilla thumping their chests, butt slapping our misfit mudder, and high fiving each other… And in that moment, I saw Heaven. Heaven on earth, were everyone was equal, united by a common love, defined by the power of hope, and rejoicing in the battle won.

“Weeping may come for a night, but joy comes in the morning” Psalms 30:5

Heavy with the Joy of It

Tomorrow I turn thirty. It's not like I think that is old...because I know in 30 years I'll look back and laugh at that...and it's not that I think I'm wise, because honestly it seems the older I get the less I know. But sometimes, like tonight, on the eve of my thirtieth birthday I feel heavy with life, heavy with the speed of it, heavy with the weight of it, heavy with what I haven't done. But mostly, heavy with the joy of it.

I remember my sixth birthday when the large cardboard box in the garage moved and I tore into it to find the most perfect woolly lamb with a lavender collar who I named Heidi. What a birthday that was. My tenth birthday was the traveling birthday, a celebration in every relatives home from Montana to California...my brothers were jealous. My thirteenth birthday I asked for bed sheets, there was a Laura Ashley set I had had my eyes on. For my sixteenth birthday we camped in Glacier by Lake McDonald, and my girlfriend Kim and I went skinny dipping at midnight and ate Cheetos in our tent until our tongues went numb with whatever chemicals they put in those things. I spent my twenty-second birthday on my honeymoon, and my twenty-seventh throwing up from pregnancy. On my twenty-eight I ran a marathon and pushed my six month old twins across the finish line in the stroller. And tomorrow, I turn thirty.

The next thirty years are an untold story...they will be full of the joys and struggles, the blindsides and dreams, the discoveries and losses that define life. But these next thirty years, I hope to slow it down, or if I can't do that, at least name more of it. Acknowledge all of it's wonder, make sure I articulate it's gifts, live in the present and not push the future.

I will look my children in the eye. I will let my guard down. I will love reckless. I will breath deeply and notice it. I will never say never. I will learn. I will see things I've never seen. I will create. I will make beauty. I will tell those I love that I love them more often. I will be thankful. I will acknowledge God. I will love. I will love. I will love...

And in thirty years I'm sure I won't feel wise, and hopefully I won't feel old...but I'm sure that I'll feel heavy with life. Heavy with the speed of it, heavy with the weight of it, heavy with what I haven't done. But mostly, heavy with the joy of it.

Hope Springs

I love the seasons...and New England does them well. Today I ran and it felt like for the first time in a long time that we'd shaken the cold and grey, we finally shrugged the last icy morning and that life had sprung. Blooming brambles cascaded over  broken rock wall...birds sang and busied themselves. And I took out my earphones as I ran past a marsh because the frog song was better then my music. 

I suppose the reason why spring feels so incredible here is because of the severity of winter. We feel on some level like we've earned it. We paid our dues of deep bundling, of bent heads in humid chill, of locked in stuffy days where the frost on the window pane was the only growing life outside. Of runny noses, and cold floors and early nights and dark mornings. 

And I suppose that's why it feels so good to open the windows and let out months of stale air. To totally abandon layers and let the girls run naked in the backyard. To notice the kiss of sunshine on lily white skin with a hint of romance...like a body going a very long time without the touch of a loved one. It feels like over night hope grew in the crocus and the tulips and the whole world is celebrating and my hair catches flower petals like confetti at a wedding. 

And hope does spring. Last week Dustan took the last of his chemo pills which marked the end of constant treatment since his July brain surgery. and this week feels a bit like spring. And in a way it feels like we earned it. Days of nausea, of patience running low. Of weight loss and sleepless nights, of frustrated demoralizing struggle against some unseen foe...of marking our lives by the swing of the effects that chemo brings and living under the weight of knowing there is more. 

But as I scheduled this month, I didn't mark the days he would be on chemo, and I guess I just hadn't realized how much we'd been living in our own winter until I felt the freedom of our spring. Unencumbered and hopeful that life begins again, that beauty comes from struggle.

There will be other seasons to come. Each with their own beauty and each with their own struggle. But today, for the first time in a long time I opened the cupboard by my stove where Dustan's mini pharmacy has rested and I put away our spare mugs on an empty shelf. And I smiled to myself...because sometimes it only takes a blooming branch or an empty cupboard to remember that...hope...does...spring. 

Wild heart

I have a reckless, wild heart. In vain did my parents warn me of boundaries, and control, and steady steps to love. In vain did they counsel me in the importance of objective decisions and practical choices. In vain have I sought in life and especially love to hold myself back and measure out slowly, safely. I have a reckless, wild heart...and oh, how I have hurt. Those brutal mile long, helicopter rescue, debris strewn heart breaks that leave you shattered, and battered, and bleeding. Those tightness in the chest, sharp pain in the core, grasping for air kind of train wrecks. And yet, when the smoke clears and the dust settles, that heart gathers again and impulsively  foolishly, recklessly begins again. Oh, how it betrays me, always leaving me more vulnerable  with more invested, always the one out on the limb, looking foolish with my heart in my hands, and my foot in my mouth.

And it is ridiculous because often I don't see it coming...well, if I did, I didn't admit it until I'm all in, hands up, ready to go for broke. You'd think I'd have learned, you think I'd have slowed down, you think I'd have nothing left.

But lately...it's gone and done it again on me, twice over and this one...this one I know it's a dosey. You see, there are two little blondes with vivid blue eyes that have just captured it and tottered away with it. And they don't even know how far gone I am, they don't even know what they've done to me. How that reckless heart feels for them, something more powerful then human articulation can name. How when they giggle and smile it does flip-flops in my rib cage and catapults in my stomach. How when little hands cup my face and quizzical eyes peer deep into me, I feel as if they are somehow myself, just in another body, with goodness and innocence. And my heart feels bare and vulnerable because I know that they will always carry it with them. Someday it will be taken from this place when they leave me, they will walk away with it like another article in their suitcase...and I close my eyes tight and draw in the sharpness of pain that I already feel for that moment.

But that doesn't slow me down. Not even a little. There is no reserve of caution, even though I know of this impending heart break. Its a hundred miles a minute, careening out of control. It's a wild love affair of kisses, and adoration, and discovery, and simplistic trust, and unreserved emotions. It's dancing in the living room....both of them in my arms with their hands in my hair and heads on my shoulders. And I feel my heart falling, flying, wild and I say to it, "love reckless, for before this moment, you only ever dreamed of love."

They Are My Reason

I've been here before. The hospital rooms, the unanswered questions, the calm resolution and clarity of priorities. I've held my husbands hand before as they told us he had a brain tumor...told him before that we would beat this, we'd fight it. Four years ago actually. And we did, we fought and we won. Or this is what we thought. But I'm standing in the ER and the Doctor shows me the cat-scan and tells me it's back. And it is. Bigger, badder. And I lean down to tell Dustan in a choked whisper..."its back babe." And he says, "that's not good". And its not. I know this. I've been here before...but I've never been here before. Because this time, back at home, there are two little girls who call us "mama" and "dada". Because this time, there are innocents. Two little lives that belong to us. This time, it's not just me, or us...its ours. Because this time the stakes are higher. And we know this. And I wonder, how strong can I be?

It's an ambulance transfer, drugs, tests, scans, and a frenzy of Doctors. It's questions, and possible solutions, and the reality that the answers are unknown. It's numbness, and resolutions, and a determination to get through. I've been here before...but I've never been here before. Because tonight instead of staying with Dustan in his room, I will go home. Because there are two more little people that need my care. So I leave him...and wish I could be more then one. Tonight I feed them and dress them and sing them lullabies. Tonight I hold them and tell them I love them and tuck them into their cribs. And tonight little Emmie pulls herself up to grip the bars and expectantly cries. "Dada! Dada! Dada!" and something inside me tears right in two, top to bottom and everywhere in-between. And it hits me so hard it could have been a freight train. This time, it's not about me, it's not about Dustan, its' not about us. This time the reason for fighting this is them. They are my reason. Emmie quiets down and goes to sleep. Yes, she would get used to not having her daddy there to put her down... but I never want her to. Both my babies need their daddy. Both of them adore him and he them. But little Emmie is so much like her father. I want her to know how she is like him, I don't ever want to have to tell her. And little Ellie is my coordinated sportswoman, I just know it. And I need her dads physical talent and ability to nurture that. Yes, this time, they are my reason.

I don't know if I would call it resentment. But this motherhood thing has been slow in coming for me. Slow in taking hold that I am now not my own. I often feel in a blur of functioning, and less of really experiencing. But tonight there is something bigger then myself. Something wholly powerful beyond my own understanding that takes root. THEY ARE YOUR REASON. The reason for everything I choose, I do, I endure.

And so, my strength is gathered around me with a new purpose. Stronger and bigger then I ever knew possible. I put on my boxing gloves and stake down in the corner of the man who my children call "Dada." And I fight, I fight, I fight. I tell him we will beat this, I tell him we will live...really live. I tell him we will simply work this into our extraordinary life. I hold his hand while he vomits. I clean him up when he cannot clean himself. I spend sleepless nights repeating bible promises to him to ease his troubled mind. I answer the same questions over and over because he cannot remember. I help him sit. I help him stand. I help him walk. And we walk, and walk, and walk. I ride the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical roller-coaster that is brain trauma and cancer. And I fight, I fight, I fight. I am tired. Not tired, more then tired...weary. But I fight, I fight, I fight with him, for him...because they are my reason.

We take each day for what it is...and we live, really live. There is something beautiful about this. Something precious and holy. It is a privilege to see life like this, to understand the clarity of your priorities. To have so much to live and fight for. I do not resent it, I do not fear it. They tell us there is no cure. And then time lines are discussed. And I find myself calculating where the girls will be in life. There is never enough time to love them. To watch them grow and learn. There is never enough time to discover these incredible little humans who God has somehow graced us with. They are my reason. And I fight, I fight, I fight.

Dustan is an incredible man, with incredible spirit. And together we will win again. It may not be forever, but it will be rich. We will live...really live. We will keep growing, keep learning, keep exploring, keep moving until we cannot anymore. Until we have to succumb to our humanity and go where every man most go. We will do this for our children. They are our reason.

I will not stop. I will do the harder thing. Today I came home from radiation and tried to make amends for a house in chaos while Dustan rested. My girls where restless and demanding at my feet. I wanted nothing more then to put in a movie and zone them out. But my strength gathered round me and I pulled out the finger paints. I stripped them down and put them on the kitchen floor and we painted. Bright splatters of wild color,  hand prints, and feet prints, and chaotic swirls. And at the end there was more paint on them and the floors then the paper. But we lived...really lived. They are my reason.