“TOGETHER”

JANUARY 12 2022 – Yesterday, I commenced my treatment—amidst a national health crisis. As angels flocked to my case, I recalled what a close physician-friend had told me the night before: my (vast) “cheering section” will eventually, understandably “move on” with their own lives, concerns, challenges. My friend’s realistic wisdom inspired a deeper examination of the marathon references that I’ve made recently on this blog. And my marathon reminded me of our marathon.

Tuesday morning is when the rubber of my soles—and the mettle of my soul—would hit the road. On Monday night, however, I didn’t feel like a marathoner. I felt like a human butterfly net. Fluttering monarchs, viceroys, and tiger yellowtails raised havoc with my anxieties. I thought about what my doctor-friend had said of people “moving on”—like a flock of butterflies into the wild.

Yesterday morning, as my wife and I entered what’ve become familiar quarters, the butterfly image yielded back to the marathon, to a set of bleachers on either side of the starting line. I pictured my family and friends seated there, waving banners and shouting support, swelling to a fever pitch when the race official pulled the trigger of her starting gun.

Giddy from the applause, I strode forth, caught in the group adrenalin that is palpable at the start of every big marathon. But soon I applied the brakes. Every runner has a pre-determinable, best possible time (based on numerous personal and training parameters) from which an optimal mile-pace can be calibrated.  For every second below that optimal time in the first half of the race, when cheering is cacophonous, the runner loses two seconds per mile over the second half of the course, when the cheering diminishes.

This was a sobering thought. I wondered how many of the people in the “bleachers” would be cheering me at six miles, 10, 15, and Heartbreak Hill. When I relayed this to my doctor with my stalwart spouse beside me, they echoed each other: “But your caregivers will be right there with you every step of the way.”

Those were my coaches talking. Confidence restored.

Then I realized that my imagery was flawed. My family, my friends, and friends of my friends, who’ve reached out to me with such overwhelming good will, are not ephemeral cheerleaders in vanishing bleachers. These well-wishers are fellow runners in the race; they hail from all walks of life, from hither and yon, many from training backgrounds (i.e. life experiences) far more rigorous than my own. Together, we’re running . . . together we are . . . the human race.

If each of us is an individual with her/his own shoes, woes and worries, we run together—in a collective marathon called “life.” And I know from experience—you can run the race alone, blocking out all people around you or . . . with energy shared, you and everyone else can be assured a better marathon.

Life is replete with mysteries, but this maxim is not among them: “We’re all in this together.”

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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson