Action, Charity, Effort, Love

After spending this week in London, I got back to NY late last night, and was dreading the early wake up call this morning for GTS. I am running a 15K tomorrow (plus a run before that to make sure I get enough mileage in), so I only had to do 5 miles today - knowing that it would be a much less painful day helped get me out of bed and off to practice.

The other thing that helped was that I'd planned to run today's miles for Brian Schultz. If you've been following my blog, you know that Brian is the cousin of one of my San Diego TNT teammates, Sarah Stafford. Sadly, Brian succumbed to sarcoma on December 11th, just 2 days after his 33rd birthday. My heart goes out to his family, especially his wife and baby daughter - I hope they're taking solace in the fact that he's no longer in pain, and finding some way to get through this so close to the holidays.

So today I showed up to GTS for Grandpa and for Brian. Before we ran, Erin MacBeth, one of the TNT coordinators, told us that not one, but TWO of our TNTers had been found as bone marrow matches as a result of a bone marrow donor registration drive that we all attended back in October. That's two families whose prayers may have been answered, just in time for Christmas. Powerful stuff.

I ran my miles and came back to get my bag, and someone had attached a note of thanks on it. It said:

If that little voice in your head starts telling you "this is too hard," please remember the words of our own Peter Macaluso, a past TNT participant who lost his battle with leukemia on September 16, 2004.

"...there may come a time where you wonder: is what I am doing making a difference? When you're on your last miles of a marathon, or of a hundred mile cycling course, or trying to make it the last yards to shore in a tri... and you wonder: am I making a difference? Is it worth it? Come celebrate with me, 'cause the answer is a resounding YES!! I have no choice, but you do, all of you. And you've chosen action over complacency, charity over selfishness, effort over easiness, a life of love over a life of indifference."

I will always choose action, charity, effort, and love - for Peter, and most importantly, for Grandpa.