(The purpose of this 16-week blog is to shine the light on childhood cancer by sharing our family’s personal experience as I prepare to run my first ever half marathon and raise money to help children with cancer and their families. Be a part of the story! Donate here then share with your own family and friends.)
Text from my phone on May 2, 2016:
Me: “Oh crap, I just signed up for the St. Jude Half Marathon. I’m doing it even if I have to walk the entire thing!”
Josh: “That’s called the inciting incident.”
Let me be clear from the very beginning. I am not a runner. I have never been a runner. I have never been anything resembling a runner. And yes, I am now signed up to run a half marathon.
When I texted my oldest son, Josh, to tell him that I had done the unthinkable, signed up to actually run…not a 50 yard dash, not even a 5K, but 13.1 MILES…he didn’t respond with “Are you crazy? Why would you do that?” or even a “Good job, Mom! You can do this!” His response was just five words…“That’s called the inciting incident.”
I had no clue what that meant.
When I “Googled” it (which I often do for so many things in life) this is what I found… “The Inciting Incident is the event or decision that begins a story’s problem. Everything up and until that moment is Backstory, everything after is The Story.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
Life is made up of one inciting incident after another. You never know what lurks in the shadows of a new day when you get out of bed in the morning. So many problems, joys, and tragedies with no idea of how they will turn out.
“When it comes to figuring things out in this life you’re living, you’d do well to know the rest of the story. Because for most of us, life feels like a movie we’ve arrived to 40 minutes late. Sure, good things happen, sometimes beautiful things. But tragic things happen too. What does it mean? We find ourselves in the middle of a story that is sometimes wonderful, sometimes awful, usually a confusing mixture of both, and we haven’t a clue how to make sense of it all. No wonder we keep losing heart. We need to know the rest of the story.” -John Eldredge
I have no idea how this part of my story is going to end (and yes, I am quite terrified), but I am inviting you to enter into this inciting incident with me. Once a week, over the next 15 weeks leading up to Race Day on December 3, I will tell you some of the Backstory that brought me to this place and I will share parts of The Story that are happening now. I will also share songs with you that are taken straight from my Race Day Playlist…an extremely diverse bunch of songs that I’m hoping will give me the energy to put one foot in front of the other mile after mile after very looong mile.
BACKSTORY:
Ten years ago, this very day, was the worst day of my entire life. At 3 something in the early morning of August 25, 2006, my 15 year old son, Nick left this world for Heaven after battling cancer (acute myeloid leukemia) for only 8 months.
I don’t know why I didn’t die at that same moment because that’s what it felt like. In those first hours, I could have never imagined that I would still be alive 10 years later.
I don’t know how I have survived the past decade. Day by day, moment by moment, I suppose, just piled up one after the other and brought me to today.
Several years before Nick got sick, my sister’s son died of Cystic Fibrosis then my dad died the following year after a stroke. When Nick was diagnosed, right before Christmas 2005, I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that my nephew and dad were both gone. And now my son had cancer.
The time since Nick’s death has been filled with other horrors…the sudden death of my sister just 8 months after Nick was gone; my mom’s quick decline into dementia and her slow, lingering, weeks-long death; and the sudden death of my youngest brother just a year after Mom was gone. This is not the backstory that I would have chosen.
THE STORY:
So. Here we are at today.
Today, I am training for a half marathon.
You may be wondering why in the world, at 53 years of age (54 by race day), I would even attempt this feat for the first time in my life. The answer is easy. Because not only did stinking cancer take my son away from me but I have now spent the past 10+ years of my life watching my friends’ children suffer and die, one after another. And I am just sick and tired of it.
How would the world respond if today a terrorist took a classroom full of 43 children hostage? Then out of those 43, he chose 5 children to kill then injure almost all the rest so that they would be left with horrible scars for the rest of their lives. Only one or two were fortunate enough to escape untouched except for the emotional scars and lingering fear left behind. This would be awful and the attention of the world would be on those 43 children.
But what if that didn’t just happen today but then again tomorrow, then the next day, and the next…in fact, everyday of every year. Would the world pay attention and do something to save these children?
Today, 43 more children were diagnosed with some form of cancer. Tomorrow another 43 children will be diagnosed with cancer…and so on and so on. That’s 301 children this week…1,333 this month, 15,695 this year. Out of those children diagnosed, 12% like my Nick will not survive more than 5 years. Many will be left without a leg, an arm, an eye. Few escape untouched.
Today, cancer kills more children than AIDs, asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and congenital anomalies combined. It is the leading cause of death by disease in children and adolescents in the United States. Yet all types of childhood cancer COMBINED receive less than 4% of the United States federal funding for cancer research according to the National Cancer Institute. That is NOT ok with me.
So today, I am training for a half marathon.
I run for my dear son, Nick.
I run for the many children who have died.
I run for those who, despite their many battle scars, are surviving.
I run for those still in the fight.
I run for those who don’t even know yet that hard days are ahead.
I run in the hopes that one day no child will ever again die from cancer.
Be part of The Story! Donate here…
My goal is to raise at least $2,500 for the awesome research that happens at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and will make a difference in outcomes of those 43 kids who are diagnosed with cancer every day.
That’s just 25 people to donate $100.
Or 50 people to donate $50.
Or 100 people to donate $25.
If you are unable to donate financially, please consider passing along this message to others who can!
http://fundraising.stjude.org/site/TR/Heroes/Heroes?px=2078389&pg=personal&fr_id=59186
THE SONG:
Song #32 on my Race Day Playlist is It’s Your Life by Francesca Battistelli. It reminds me of the moment of the inciting incident…when we have to choose what we’re going to do with whatever comes next. The event or decision that begins your story’s problem…
Listen to “It’s Your Life” here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F11aN4E98hA
This is the moment
It’s on the line
Which way you gonna fall?
In the middle
Between wrong and right
But you know after all…
It’s your life.
Whatcha gonna do?
The world is watching you.
Every day the choices you make
say what you are and who
your heart beats for.
It’s an open door.
It’s your life.
Are you who you
always said you would be
with a sinking feeling in your chest?
Always waiting
on someone else to fix you.
Tell me when did you forget?
It’s your life.
Whatcha gonna do?
The world is watching you.
Every day the choices you make
say what you are and who
your heart beats for.
It’s an open door.
It’s your life.
For many of us, our Backstories are filled with some pretty hard stuff. These are the things that change the very being of who we are… who we were. If you are struggling, let me say that I am sorry for the hard things you have gone through. We are in this fight together. I am with you.
Many of you who are reading this most likely know our Backstory, or at least part of it. If you don’t and would like to know more details of Nick’s story, you can visit his CaringBridge site here…