Running
in memory of my dad, Ian Allan Stewart
3-6 years old. My dad pulling me in a radio flyer wagon on his daily run. He turns around and smiles back at me.
“One day you’ll be a runner like me.”
8 years old. Running with him now. Struggling to keep up.
“One day you’ll outrun me.”
10. On trails through the redwoods. Leaping over roots & brushing ferns. Playing the plant identification game. If I get enough right, we get ice cream on the way home.
“Uhhh… myosotis… laxa?”
“Common name?”
“Forget-me-not.”
“Ding ding ding!”
One day he stumbles on the trail. He falls a lot now. This time his arm— which hangs limply at his side, its muscles refusing their duty—doesn’t move to catch him. Blood on his face, elbows, and shin.
“Sorry kiddo, your old man isn’t feeling so great. Let’s walk home this time.”
11. I ran out of the social worker’s office. & kept running. Miles & miles. Until my breath runs ragged, & my muscles drag as if I’m pulling a radio flyer full of something unspeakably heavy. Words pounding in my head.
“What does ‘terminal illness’ mean?”
And the answer.
12. I ran a lot then. Maybe to make up for the miles my dad couldn’t run anymore. Ran away from school, away from home, became a truant. If I could just run hard enough, and far enough, maybe I could catch the past. And keep it.
12. Coming home to ambulances in the driveway. Running away so I wouldn’t have to see them. Until one day I came home to our driveway full of cars. Walked in the front door. All my family there, suddenly silent, as if my presence were a conductor sweeping his arm down.
“Daddy?” I asked, voice shaking.
In my hand I held a necklace I bought for him. A cheap trinket, fake silver, an apology for running away.
“Dad, where are you?”
My aunt stepping out from the rest. Enveloping me.
“He’s gone.”
Necklace dangling from my fist.
I ran then. And kept running. I’ve been running ever since. Varsity track & cross country in high school. Every day, on every training run and race, I wore the necklace, even as it rusted & irritated my skin & stained my clothes.
16. Tink tink tink. Its sound pleasantly percussive. A constant presence. A welcome weight as it thudded against my neck & above my heart.
One day running on a rural Montana road, I felt unanticipated lightness. An absence. Patted my chest. Then my neck. Panic set in.
Gone. Sprinted up and down that road, desperately searching ditches & grass & pavement. Broken bottles & chewing tobacco cans & cigarettes & tattered plastic bags, but no necklace.
Collapsed on the yellow line, sobbing. I don’t remember running home.
But I kept running. In college, I ran marathons. Trained on the same trails my dad used to run with me. Sometimes I saw men who looked like him from a distance. Surfers on the water. City maintenance workers in orange shirts. A dad running with his daughter, both laughing.
Was I chasing or being chased? One can never tell with ghosts.
I never found the necklace.
I never caught up with the past.
But today I hurt so badly. Percussion of memories, like the tink tink tink of a chain necklace. Took off on a run to exercise and exorcise.
Clouds bulge with rain. My breath bursts. My muscles are heavy. I am old & so tired. The love I want outruns me. I can see him in the distance. Quercus agrifolia, coast live oak. Lupinus albifrons, lupine. Eschscholzia californica, golden poppy.
Myosotis laxa. Forget-me-not.
I will keep running until I cannot.
Beautiful, so moving
Well said. Well written. Well done.
I feel this.