"Our doing the 5K for ALS in memory of Jimmy is the equivalent to a memorial mass," I tell my kids. "In my family you go to mass each year to remember the person who died. Instead of doing that for Jimmy, we do this 5k."
In the beginning, we all went to the ALS 5K each June. Jimmy died in 2007, and I think we started doing the race in 2009. As the kids got older and had activities and opinions, some of us went. So attendance -- which some years meant hanging about with my extended family and eating treats and not actually running or walking -- went from mandatory family activity to optional event if you want to come. Some years it was all six of us; others, two or three of us.
(One year I was in Colorado for a conference. My husband left me a voice mail the night before the ALS 5K, saying that they were going to skip the race because they were all exhausted, having attended end-of-year events and preschool graduation that week. He said to let him know if that didn't work. I could understand his weariness and his not wanting to get four kids (ages 4, 6, 8, 10) out the door at 7:30 on a Saturday morning. I called and left a message: "You do need to go to the race. Christine is counting on you, on us. Showing up means a lot to her." When I called him the next morning, hoping that he's heard my message, the noise was loud and excited: our oldest ran the whole thing! they were with my sisters! they were eating pizza!)
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Annual memorial masses were part of growing up. When someone died, we went to the funeral or maybe just my parents went to the funeral, but a year later and in subsequent years, close to the date of the person's passing, we went to a memorial mass for the person. Uncle Joe, Gramps (paternal grandfather), Pat (maternal grandfather). A year after my mom died, my dad started the ritual for her. He expressed to me at one point that it was a custom that he wasn't sure about, though he is still a practicing Catholic. He just wasn't sure why we did it and whether he wanted to do it. But still, for the past fifteen years, he's organized a mass in her memory -- which means that he has called St. Peter's Church, put her name in, and at a regularly scheduled mass on a Saturday afternoon, the priest says my mom's name -- Ann Sullivan -- twice during the mass. Then we go back to my dad and his wife's house and have a dinner with everyone who has showed up -- aunts, uncles, cousins.
It's a nice ritual, whether you're Catholic or not, setting aside a few hours to be together in memory of that person. Rarely do we actually talk about my mom at this annual gathering. But we all know why we're there, and that's enough.
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My brother-in-law Jimmy wasn't Catholic or religious. He told my sister not to have a funeral when he died, so she didn't. A year or two after he died, she had shirts made for the run, and then, a few years later, when she married again, she and her husband made a team called Team Jimmy, to honor the memory of both her husband Jimmy and her new husband's father, also named Jimmy, who had also died from ALS. (Yes, strange coincidence.)
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It's COVID time 2020, so there's no ALS gathering this year -- no balloons and pizza and bagels and cookies and Ben and Jerry's and face painting and shoot the basketball for $5 (which I never have on me, and my Dad and sisters give my kids money for). I plan to do the 5K here in my city, so eight-year-old Hannah says that she'll join me. When we wake up, we search different websites that can map a route for us; it's possible that we spend more time dealing with the computer's making us a route than we will spend running. We decide that 5.4 kilometers is close enough since it's a loop, and we want to begin and end at our driveway.
Hannah borrows her brother's phone (he's fourteen and has a phone), he makes her a playlist for the run, and we write out the route on a piece of paper -- Bacon to Lexington to Beaver to Main and looping back to Bacon then Greenwood then Claremont (our street). I'm expecting that I'll run the 5K in about thirty-five minutes, and I'll spend a lot of time going back to check on Hannah, run with her, direct her. We've got a plan.
But her brother's phone needs to be charged, so we have to wait for that. And I want some new songs on my phone, so I purchase those and wait for them to download (no matter how often I buy songs from itunes, I make this process time-consuming and confusing -- how do I get off the screen that advertises apple music for $9.99 a month? how do I find my song? how do I get the song that I've bought on the computer onto my phone? how many times do I need to restart my phone to see the songs and get them onto my running playlist -- the only playlist I have?). Hannah makes me a playlist on youtube also, so we'll have some of the same songs -- "High Hopes" and "Senza Farlo Posto" and "Count on Me" and "Shotgun" -- and Sebastian can't believe that we still haven't left. We're about an hour behind schedule (yes, our own, since there is no set time for this virtual race or event...in fact, we're doing it a day early to accommodate another kid's birthday wishes).
We finally get up from the table with our map and playlists, ready to go.
Ten-year-old Connor runs in the door.
"I'm coming!" he says.
"Why?" I ask him.
"Because I was bored at my friend's house. So I want to come."
"All right. Let's go over the map. You sure you'll be okay to do this? It's really really hot, and you haven't run in months," I say.
"Yep. Let's go over the map," he says.
So we do.
He draws it twice and we review it, and he's ready to go even without music. Tracking Connor and Hannah around Waltham was not how I had envisioned this run (I run once a week both because it makes me tremendously happy and because I love to listen to my music. Running more than once a week I would feel in my knees or hips or back -- at forty-seven years old. Ah, well. Once a week is perfect.), but I go with it: an eight-year-old and ten-year-old who want to go on a 5K run or walk with me on a summer day of eighty-five degrees -- I am delighted.
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Connor starts off fast, but stops and waits patiently at the first light. I usually jog at lights, a break that I like, but if I keep moving, even in place, I count it as part of my run. He runs with ease, even without music, calm and quick (or quick to me). Hannah turns around and points to her feet while boogying a bit: this means that she's listening to "One Foot" (Walk the Moon) at the moment. I've run with Hannah before, so I know that she won't put too much pressure on herself: she'll stop when she needs, walk a bit, sit a bit, get going again when she feels ready. I worry more about Connor, who is competitive and might want to prove that he can do this 5K better than his younger sister and I can. He'll push himself, and I'm a little concerned about his passing out. But he's stopping at the lights and standing in the shade. He's walking a little. He's not blocks behind, and I haven't even once gone back to find or check in with either Hannah or him. They both stay ahead of me.
Hannah turns around again, crosses her arms and puts a leg out to show me that "Wherever I Go" (Miley Cyrus) is on. I smile as she taps her foot out a bit. I smile as she catches up to Connor, and the two of them run side by side until they get to the next light, then stand in the shade together. Their faces are so red, and they are sweaty and breathing heavy, but when the light changes, on they go. I cannot adore them more.
Some years ago a neighbor called Connor and Hannah "the littles," in distinguishing them from their two older siblings. It stuck. As a kid, I was one of the "three little kids," so I project on them the comfort I had in belonging to the "three little kids," (as opposed to the big kids, who were our older brother and sister). The Bigs are at home hanging out, at age thirteen and fourteen. But The Littles are running and walking around Waltham, passing each other, slowing down, taking breaks, doing dance moves, checking in, passing me.
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They speed ahead as we get near our street, gunning it to our driveway. Later, when they discuss the race, Connor says, "Hannah beat me by a second or maybe two."
Hannah responds, "No. Definitely two seconds."
I arrive thirty to sixty seconds after they do.
Connor says to me, "Can we do that run again next week?"
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My brother-in-law, their Uncle Jimmy, died in 2007. He was thirty-six. Connor and Hannah never met him. But I imagine him smiling at them as they pour water over their heads and walk around the block to stretch out and discuss the final two seconds of the run.
A mass. A dinner. A run. A walk. A laugh.
There are so many ways to remember.
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