December 23, 2013
Dear Stephen,
It’s been a really long time, I know. I had all of these
grand plans about the 26 letters when I started marathon training. I was going
to write 26 poignant, funny, thoughtful letters chronicling my experience. The
last one was going to tie everything up in a nice little bow. It was going to
be beautiful.
It didn’t happen.
In retrospect, it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know what
made me believe that I was going to have the wherewithal to write. Running the
marathon the first time made me crazy. I had no reason to believe this time
would be different. It wasn’t. So I didn’t write. And here I am.
I had my reasons for not writing before. But now I think
it’s time to find some closure to the experience.
So. The marathon. What shall I say about that?
Parts of it were so awesome, Stephen. Parts were terrible,
but parts were so, so awesome. I’m so pleased and proud to have been able to
run for you. It made me so happy to post my progress and collect donations in
your name. And even though through most of it you felt so very far away, that
brief moment I had with you at the end of the race made it all worth it.
I must confess, though, that I thought I would feel
different after it was over. I don’t know how
I expected to feel, exactly, but the feeling of futility was not it. After all
those hours, all those miles, all those muscle aches, all that anticipation… it
was just all over so fast. My memories of the race are patchy and incomplete,
probably from a combination of emotional shutdown and physical exertion. And
then the next day, I stared down at my medal and thought, “What was the point?
Stephen’s still dead.”
And you are. You always will be. I knew I wouldn’t change
that, but … . Maybe using someone else’s words will help me explain.
There’s a popular post on the blog Hyperbole and a Half where the author writes of her quest to earn
adult responsibility. For the first few days, she is gung-ho about being
responsible. She goes to the bank! She cleans all the things! She basks in her grown-up-ness!
Then suddenly she has another reason to go to the bank. The
things get dirty and she has to clean them again. And she realizes adult
responsibility is not a thing you earn. You don’t work hard for a certain
length of time and then get to put your Adult Responsibility Trophy on the
mantle. It just doesn’t work that way. Adult responsibility is ongoing. You can
made some good runs of it, and maybe coast along on the rewards for a week or
two. But then you start over again, and keep working on it.
I realize now that a piece of me thought of the marathon as
my Adult Responsibility Trophy. Except, in my case, it was more of a Stephen
Mourning Trophy. I took on this big task, and I knew it was going to be
physically and emotionally exhausting. But I thought at the end I would have
this thing I could hold on to. That I would have earned my Stephen Mourning
Trophy, and my reward would be having you back. Or at least not missing you as
much. I would have fixed it.
But as soon as the marathon was over, I was right back where
I was before I started. You were still dead. I still hated that you were dead. Nothing
at all was fixed.
I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, Stephen. I’m so, so, so, so
sorry. I look at the photo of the five of us standing outside 409 Monroe on the
last day we were all together, and I always get this image of the five of us
together again when we’re 50, laughing at each others’ clothing and haircuts.
And it make me angry (so angry) to
know that day will never come.
I know that the 24th is, officially speaking, the
day you died. I know that, but for some reason it’s always today, on the 23rd,
that I think of you. You would think it’d be the image of you lying lifeless in
that car that would haunt me. But it doesn’t. Instead, it’s the thought of you
today, breathing, laughing, living on your holiday trip home, with no knowledge
of what was to come in a few short hours. That is what haunts me.
I spend a lot of time thinking about what you might have
done if you had known. One thing that gives me some comfort is that I don’t
think you would have done much differently. If you had a few hours warning, you
probably would have chose to spend those hours exactly as you did. So there’s
that.
But the memory of you alive on that last day of your life is
such a painful reminder of everything that will not be.
I wish I could say that running the marathon for you changed
something for the better, but I am not sure it did. You’re still dead. I’m
still missing you. I’m still looking for the way to fix it. I could run a
thousand marathons and still not fix it.
I hope against hope that it changed something for you. I
hope against hope that made you just a little bit less sad about everything you
won’t get to do.
One month after the marathon, I stood at the top of the
Sydney Harbor Bridge, and I thought of you. I thought about all of the
listlessness I felt, and about how futile any effort was going to be. And then,
just for a moment, I felt hope. A feeling came over me, and I thought, “I will never
stop living. That will be my ongoing tribute to you.”
I am not even sure what I meant by that at the time, but I
have come to understand it like this: There are a thousand things you will
never get to do. I’m alive, and that alone gives me all of the opportunities
you missed. I will never stop taking them. I will always take the helicopter
ride. I will always do the cliff jump. I will always do the things I am afraid
to do, because that is what you would have done. That can be how I remember
you.
I will do my very best, Stephen. I hope it will be enough to
let you rest in peace. But know that nothing will ever, ever be enough to make
me stop missing you.
Love,
Katie
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