run on sentences

The night before the St. George marathon, after eating a big glob of angel hair pasta and shrimp in buttery garlic sauce, we were riding back to my friends house. I had a missed phone call in the restaurant and checked my voice mail. Of course, with caller ID and all, I knew who the call was from and expected a message from that person. Instead, the message I got said (in a still recognizable slur made possible by progressing Lou Gehrig's disease): "Hi Donna. This is Bob. I won't get to visit with you tomorrow because we are going to Park City. Have a good run and I will catch up with you later". It was my friend and running buddy, Bob, who had died a year ago from Lou Gehrig's disease, which is supposed to be rare, but if it is, why do I know so many people who know someone who has it? Bob qualified for Boston in St. George about 3 years ago, just before he found out he would lose his voice and just about everything else, to LG, which in this case does not mean ...

Happy birthday Bob wherever you are.

...but death is so damn final. It was weird not visiting Bob and Deb on Saturday like I usually do. I didn't get to tell Bob about the 21 miler that Suzanne, Paula and I did the day after we said goodbye to him, or how I found a shotgun in a case in the school parking lot while I waited for Paula and Suzanne. I called the police and while they were grateful that I called them so some kid didn't find the gun, they were irritated that I had touched the butt of the gun and even more irritated when I said I should have known better cause I watched CSI reruns. That same run, we saw a bride to be standing on a rock in her front yard - no one was taking pictures...she was just standing there. All of these things I would have told Bob, as well as how an old guy last week told us we were breaking the law. "Did you know you are breaking the law?" he said as his car slowed down. "How so" we asked, thinking he was going to be one of those cranky old farts who was mad at...

My friend Bob died on Monday, the 22nd, just the way he had planned. His funeral was today. I spoke at it and my talk is below. What a shitty disease ALS is. The picture is of him getting his medal at the finish line in Boston in April 2007. What a marathon my friend Bob ran these past few years! And what a privilege to have been part of his final marathon. The first time I met him was when he was running his first half marathon with Tom Loken. He quickly became part of our running group. On Saturdays, we ran anywhere from 6-20 miles. We trained together for Bob’s first marathon – the Salt Lake Marathon. Over the many miles, we talked about our families, how we could run better and faster, kids, just about everything –except horses. Bob loved his family, was proud of his kids. I always described him as someone who emanated kindness. To me, he was “Sun News Bob” because of his email address but also because he was always positive – with that great sense of humor that even ALS didn’t tak...

Last week I ran a half marathon that started up in the canyon, at 7 Am. I have done this run a few times before. The first time I ran it was the first time I met my friend bob, who will die on September 22nd. He didn't have ALS then and probably it was the last thing on his mind as he completed his first 1/2 marathon which really started his running career. I thought of this as I ran my first 6 miles up hill - up the back of Emigration canyon on a beautiful soon to be fall day. My friend Suzanne and I were going to run together but she is faster up hill than I am. I am faster going down. I watched Suzanne run effortlessly up the hill (or so it seemed). She is tall and slender to my short, kinda slender, but stubby self. I am not putting myself down, I know I look pretty okay for an "older woman", but I am what I am or at least I guess I am how I see myself. I always have admired her running outfits and a time or two I bought tops like hers only to try them on and be force...

I discovered my nurse face when I was a nurses aide in a small 22 bed hospital some 34 years ago. I first used it when I was asked to change a dressing on a woman who I knew...the mother in law of a lady I babysat for. She had had abdominal surgery and had an open wound that was oozing fecal material (poop, in plain English). It smelled horrible and none of the "real nurses" wanted to be bothered with it so they sent me, the lowly aide in nursing school, to do it. I remember looking at this woman who watched me carefully to see if I would show any revulsion. I decided then and there, to do whatever I had to do, but I would not gag or let her see any signs of how I was feeling (nauseated, horrified, and sorry for her all at the same time)- to allow her to keep her dignity and feel like a human being rather than a woman with poop coming out of her side. I don't know what we talked about but I cleaned it, redressed it, and cleaned her up. We sat and talked for a while and I ...

The bride was 18 and a junior in high school. The groom was 36, a college grad and a soccer coach. She looked like a child bride, he like a balding father figure. He was standing, obviously nervous, in the bride's living room, waiting for her to come down the stairs. He seemed aware of the disapproval that hung next to the festive wedding decorations, and blended with the sounds of the father of the bride's ventilator. I caught his eye and smiled at him. He seemed like he needed one person that might give him the impression that we all didn't hate him. After all, who are we to judge? Well actually I had been judging ever since I heard about this wedding three weeks ago. He smiled back and seemed so happy to find a friendly face in the crowd of his parents, her disapproving (some drunk)siblings and a collection of friends who were just not surprised since this family just seemed to be destined for drama in many forms not even imaginable to most of us. In reality though, all ...

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day as I ran to my friend Bob's house. The leaves were jumping off the trees and it was a warm 50 something (just like me). The smell of fall reminded me of being a little girl, playing in piles of leaves and making leaf houses in the school yard. A year ago at this time, my friends and I were basking in the satisfaction of having finished the St. George marathon and qualifying for Boston....Me, Bob and another friend, Tom. Our friend and running buddy, Paula had qualified at another marathon, so she was going to run Boston with us too. I thought about all of this as I ran to Bob's house. Last year at this time, he would have met me at my house to do our usual Saturday run. Shortly after the St. George marathon, Bob got diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. The disease has been relentless, taking away first the use of his hands, muffling and then slurring his voice and making every breath a struggle. In the beginning, it was little thing...

My friend Bob showed up today for our run barefooted and wearing some soccer shorts that must have belonged to one of his kids. It wasn't that he was in a hurry. He wasn't late meeting us at Dan's Foods where he, Tom and I agreed to meet. It was because no one in his family was awake to help him pull on his usual running shorts and get his socks and shoes on. Bob has ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. This disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually lead to their death. When the motor neurons die, the brain can no longer control muscle movement. Bob can't use his hands very well any more and has lost almost all of his upper body strength. Sadly in some ways, the mind is not affected and people with this disease are aware of how...