.2 is Dedicated to You

.2  is dedicated to you, Ty

There is a reason people compare life to a marathon. Both are long and unpredictable – marked by joy, struggle, perseverance, and growth.

I wanted to inspire the athletes who signed up to run this year’s NYC marathon in support of Ty’s doctors at the Children’s Brain Tumor Project, so I created a campaign called “26.2 Reasons to Run.”

Every mile in the marathon is available to dedicate to a loved one, and the submissions about each mile designee will be sent to our team during training to help reinforce the importance of what they are running for. Training can be brutal, and sometimes that extra push – seeing the faces and hearing the stories of so many children who battled cancer – makes all the difference.

Of course I intended to sponsor a mile dedicated to Ty, and I knew from the start that it should be the .2. I asked my husband if he knew why I selected that and he shared the exact same sentiment as my own without missing a beat… “Because it’s the hardest and the most rewarding.” 

“Yes!” I said enthusiastically, “and because if life is a marathon, then that fraction of time Ty was with us… the all-too-short .2… was the hardest and most rewarding time in my life. The other 26 miles this life has and will show me can never compare to the love I knew, the grief I suffered, the knowledge I gained, and the faith I held onto in that .2 mile of my life’s journey.”

Lou reminded me that he also had the honor of carrying Ty for the last .2 stretch of the New York City marathon in 2011. It was the most remarkable moment you could imagine, and it happened by accident! Lou ran the marathon for Fred’s Team with his sister, Debi. Somehow a wonderful and supportive group of friends and family managed to cheer them on as they passed Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on the upper east side, and then helped me run Ty all the way across Manhattan to Central Park for the finish line. The finish line is not accessible to the general public, but somehow we found ourselves watching from the VIP bleachers (a little magic sprinkled by our own little VIP, I think).

 
When we saw them coming, my friends and I were so excited we didn’t realize we were breaking the rules when we ran down and onto the road to bring Ty to Lou. In photos it may look like Lou is carrying Ty across the finish line, but in our hearts we know it was Ty carrying him all along. He continues to carry us through this life.

 
Have you ever seen videos of runners who struggle to cross the finish line? Their legs give out. Some cry and scream out, others start crawling. The beauty of it is that someone always comes along to pick them back up, to put their arms around their shoulders, and to help them across the finish line – even if that means carrying them. Sometimes those people are complete strangers.

 
That was us… trying to keep going when our knees buckled; when we were so overwhelmed with fear and grief that we couldn’t breathe. Ty and our amazing community of family, friends, and strangers, lifted us up and made sure we kept going. 

We had to get through the .2.