“If you train your mind for running, everything else will be easy,” Amby Burfoot
I apologize for not being more present here for all kinds of not very good reasons. It’s just life–full, good and busy days. I have also been in and out more than usual and now am heading out again this time to Boston so Chip and JJ can run the marathon on Monday. It’s huge. We are going to a Red Sox game on Sunday. It will be great. Brilliant, as the Aussies say. Then we head south to visit family for a week. I will be able to swim laps in an Olympic-sized outdoor pool.
It snowed sideways as Beth and I walked her dog and my two worried dogs this morning (they watched us pack.) It was really stormy, snowing hard “seriously snowing” as our daughter JJ texted earlier from her home in Juneau. We leaned and ducked and covered our faces and Beth asked if we were really flying to Juneau at 10:30. I said I can’t believe anyone would leave the ground on purpose in this. Then we heard a plane. We couldn’t see it. It must be a medevac. Must be, we agreed.
When I got home Chip said, “They are flying. Ready?” He said my sister will be here in a half hour to take us to the airport.
Flying? Seriously? “How?”
“Instruments.”
“What about ice, snow, wind?”
“They have instruments. It will be fine or they wouldn’t fly.”
I am, as you may know, a reluctant traveler under the best circumstances. This is possibly the worst. I am not afraid of death. I just don’t want to leave this life yet.
My sister saw my concern. She said, “Have faith, bring your rosary.”
I believe that the children of Gaza and Ukraine are the priority right now.
I tried not to act crazy about the weather-flying situation. To remain calm. I need to be a good support crew, coach, bag holder.
Keening on the mud room floor right now would not be helpful.
I left the dogsitter a note: “You know the drill, we love you!” Then I Pledged the table. My sister raised her eyebrows. “Heath, we have to go,” Chip said.
There is a ferry at 4. It’s Plan B. We would never not have a back-up for such an important event. Our jet leaves Juneau at 5 tomorrow morning. The ferry will arrive about 8:45 tonight. Chip would like to be there sooner. To see the little kids and have a good night’s sleep. He’s been training since last April. He and JJ FaceTime every day about it. Running schedules, times, food, injuries (little ones), shoes, clothes for race day. They have already booked Boston restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
My sister loaded the bags in the car, we dodged the raining snow and wind, she said she’d wait at the airport to make sure the plane took off.
I gave the dogs a last biscuit.
The phone rang.
“Don’t answer it!” Chip said.
It was the Seaplanes office. They were sorry. “We are on weather hold. You may want to take the ferry…”
We decided not to cancel just yet. “It could clear,” Chip said. A gust of sleet strafed the house. “And the ferry won’t be a picnic in this either.”
“It will be okay,” I promised.
Scaring the wits out of myself made me feel much better. Not a worry at all. With apologies to Mark Twain– I just survived a terrible event that never happened.
We are not the only ones in the family heading to a marathon, another daughter, Sarah is running one in California tomorrow. When her ferry was canceled earlier this week and the planes weren’t flying in bad weather, she took a private boat to Juneau. It all worked out. This will too. It always does. Training for marathons gives you patience and endurance.
I will tell you all about it when we return. By then it should be spring. I hope.
