we toasted her and watched the office
Though I took a break from running to heal this stress fracture, the writing never stopped. Rather than a premeditated plan to brain dump about recent training experiences, though, it happened at odd times and was recorded in even odder places. I’ve pieced some of it together, and I know I said that this corner of Run Yoga Eat would be raw and unedited, but there are areas of my life that come through in my words that need never be on someone else’s screen, so those scraps of thoughts will remain silent, despite being a part of this Road to Leadville story. I make it a policy to never share information about others that would violate their privacy or trust, and sometimes that means shutting the hell up. I can, however, talk about my own experiences and how they affect my world as it relates to running, whether the physical act of putting one foot in front of the other or the reason I need to in that moment - even the tougher, less attractive ones.
My mom died today. Try not to be shocked at the concision of that sentence. There was no concision to her death. We knew it was coming. She’d battled type two diabetes and kidney disease for a long time, and we were waiting for her to lose enough weight to be approved for a transplant. She and I weren’t close. In fact, our relationship went from volatile to virtually non-existent, but I still felt like she should be able to live longer, and her close circle sure as shit deserved to have more time with her. I agreed to be tested as a donor, but it never got that far. She entered the hospital at 3:07am on March 7th - just one week after her 66th birthday - and was moved to hospice on April 5th. She elected to discontinue all curative treatment and died April 17th at 1:05pm. In the end, it wasn’t the renal failure that ultimately killed her, but a misdiagnosed spider bite. She couldn’t recover from the infection and organ failure caused by calciphylaxis, a treatable effect of end stage kidney disease. It was an understandable mistake, actually, and she surprised me by saying she simply hoped that this situation would stick with the doctors and keep it from happening to somebody else. Honestly, I think she was too tired to be angry. Also, age and grandchildren may have softened her. I’m not really sure, but I love knowing that she said that.
I toasted her with my best friend this afternoon, and then we watched The Office. It felt both wrong and right, but I don’t really know what the protocol is for handling the death of someone you love but didn’t really have a relationship with. I’m leaving for Texas tomorrow and packed my running shoes hoping to figure it out.
