keep running {what runners do to finish strong}

The minute I see the buses, my throat gets thick, before I’ve even spotted my son in the crowds of children clotting the walkways.

I’ve come to cheer him on, to acknowledge that he works hard and pushes through.  I want him to see me there waiting, watching.  “Run, Adam.  Run!”  I will shout his name across the field as he rounds the track and not care who hears, who points to the crazy mom with her arms in the air, jumping up and down.

The metal bleachers reverberate, a hollow, tinny sound, as we parents collect to watch the opening ceremonies.  We don’t even bother to wipe off the pollen that dulls the seats and makes our eyes sting.  I swallow hard against the pride, the mother-love that fills my eyes as I spot my son moving with his class behind a banner stretched strong in front of them.  Superheroes, that’s what it says.  The kids and their teachers wear capes.

Adam spots me in the stands snapping pictures, waving to him, and he lifts his hand.  I watch him say, “Hi, Mommy,” his lips moving so clearly I can almost hear his voice.  Those words are already our victory.  It is the joy of my day, easily the best part of my week, to get to be here for him, to get to yell and call his name, to high five and hug him at the finish, to touch his cheeks with my fingers.

After all, every time I race, Adam stands at the end for me, showing himself mine, waiting to see me run through, waiting to give me a high five.  He moves back and forth on his feet with nothing to do but absorb the crowd, the music, the flapping banners, the clouds moving across the sky.  On Sunday, I pressed into the last mile of a half marathon, singing Happy Birthday to me under my breath, thinking you’ve got some left for the end, come on now, keep running, thinking, they’re waiting for me at the finish.  I passed under the black and white arch in view of my goal time, a new personal record for me, something I’d wanted to give myself as a birthday gift.  I saw Kevin first, heard him yell, “You did it,” then my girls, then my son, then my friend who says she loves to be there for me.

Kevin’s smile on Sunday–as wide and bright as my triumph when I met my goal, reminded me of how I felt watching him race through his first triathalon.  My throat was so thick, even watching him approach the start, that I could barely speak.  I had to turn away so the kids wouldn’t worry over my tears.  At the finish, we all just screamed ourselves hoarse until the deep love, the happy for him, the pride in his effort gobbled up my voice all over again.

So, I’m thinking of this as the metal bleachers vibrate beneath my feet at the Special Olympics, as I watch my son walk through with his team, as we say the athlete’s oath.  “Let me win.  But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.” The words fall, sweet.  Let us be brave in the attempt.  The bleachers we sit on have filled with school kids who will watch the competition while they eat lunch.  They beat their feet against the metal stands, and the rolling clatter shakes like a train thundering beneath us.  And the reality rolls, trembling, like a cramp.

The bombs exploded near the bleachers.  At the finish line.  Where the thick-throated loved ones—the son waiting, the friend, the families—sat watching, warming to the triumphant call of a name.

All day, as I walk through the events with my son, as I yell “Go, go, go!  Adam, run, run, run, keep running, keep running,” from the sideline for the 100-meter dash, as I encourage him to throw hard and jump far and  then run, run, run again for the relay, it’s Monday all over again.

Monday, and I wake from a nap and there it is, the headline gripping my throat, cutting off my breath.  Bombs at the finish line.  Two dead. I sit up on the edge of my bed, moving my hand across my eyes, prayers for the hurting ones already on my lips.

I scroll through tweets and statuses, trying to resurrect from hard sleep.  The muscles in my legs, still tender from that half marathon on Sunday, seem to burn and ache more as the details coalesce.

Boston is a bucket list marathon.  Most of us will never qualify, though Kevin and I have joked about what if I did somehow someday squeak in with a qualifying time.  Only the fastest runners run Boston.  I know the training it takes to get there, what it means to finish, how we need all that yelling from the road beside.  I am a marathoner.  I know what distance runners think in the last miles, when the running hurts.  You’ve got something left for the end.  Come on, now.  Never.stop.running.  Keep running.  Keep running.

And this, too, is what I’m thinking on Monday and again today, when it’s Monday all over again and I’m yelling for my son, tears clogging up my throat:

I know those people waiting in the bleachers at the finish.  This moment, I am those people.

Immediately, I also know this:  I don’t want to see the coverage.  I know what it will look like without the seeing.  It will look like ripping pain; like sudden, unthinkable destruction.  It will look like the war that always is:  selfish, fear-dripping evil slashing at our triumph over finishing strong. I don’t want to see it.  I don’t need to see it.  Because our mourning the lost, our fighting for the finish, will mean still running.  It’s how runners handle pain.  We keep running.

But then I see this tweet, something retweeted by a friend:

Asking what’s wrong with world? Watch blast vid. Notice how many run towards it. To help. That’s what’s right with world. #bostonmarathon

— Jay Menard (@JayCMenard) April 15, 2013

And I am reminded that in times like these, when we feel the how and the why like a bruise, when we wonder where God showed Himself right there at the finish line, we need not look the evil dead in the face.  I won’t find God in a pressure cooker bomb, not in the destroying things, nor in the voices of those rejoicing over suffering.  I will find Him behind and before, in the redeeming.  He is the legs of those running toward the blast to help.  He is all the brave in the attempt.  And He shows himself in our mutual tears, in millions of prayers whispered for those who grieve.  We will not soon set aside the places left gaping, empty.

I don’t pretend to have the answers to the questions that haunt.  Honestly, it haunts me too, this wishing for things finished now, for the evil finally bound.  We press into the last miles, and sometimes the running just hurts.  But there’s a reason He waits, and it’s not so more of us will be gripped by fear or torn apart or crushed by loss.  He waits to see more of us finish, that the real victory might not be stolen away.  He doesn’t want anyone to perish.

The truth is that no one watches for our coming like He does.

He runs to meet us (Luke 15:20), throat all thick, longing to say, “Well done (Matthew 25:21).”  He marked out the race Himself (Hebrews 12:1) and ran it ahead.  So too, He runs behind (Psalm 139:5), urging us on, “Run, run, run, keep running, keep running,” calling each one by name.  Surely it’s easily His great joy to see us finish strong, to be there for our race from start to finish. And His too are the great cloud of witnesses, waiting at the end, watching, calling, the ones who gave their lives anticipating victory, the finishing, the end of all we suffer.

Only one thing remains to be done as the smoke clears, as the pain seizes, as the truth clogs our throats and our mutual tears wash the roadway clean.  It’s the only thing runners know to do to finish strong when the running just hurts.

We keep running.

Fear is a very explosive emotion, but it has a short life span.  It’s the sprint.  The marathon is the hope (~Mike Huckabee).