Running Through the Graveyard
Part 1 - Gravestones
The Last Run
A boxing match ensues between the two wills inside me at the beginning of every run: the flesh reminds me that sitting and relaxing is a nice way to give myself a “sabbath rest” at the beginning of the day and at any other time I might think about doing something physical; my spirit reminds me that my flesh is full of crap, and I won’t regret a run, but I will regret a sit (rest is a necessary and good thing, but only in proper proportion to activity).
The morning of May 16th I dropped my three youngest kids off at their school and drove through the tree-lined neighborhood that sits between it and Forest Park—the park in which I run at least five days a week. Blue skies blanketed my drive, and the sun’s rays illuminated the jumble of park regulars as I drove to the parking lot of the visitor’s center. Walkers strolled as other runners and cyclists in turn navigated around them. Trees that have known the park longer than any of the day’s visitors towered over the other walkers, runners, golfers and cyclists moving about the park.
I pulled my truck into one of the spots I normally occupy, sat for a few minutes in as my flesh and my spirit took turns throwing right hooks and left jabs. Most days I still must convince myself that I not only need to run, but that I want to run. Sometimes this inner debate precludes me from running because I no longer have time. Cue the shame. Usually, I do get out the door and down the road. This day, I thought about the eight miles I was going to run through the park and wondered if that was how I wanted to start my off-day.
I started running in my twenties training for a half marathon. Prior to that my flesh ruled. I hated running. I hated most physical activity. In sixth grade PE class we had to run the mile. The day we were supposed to run the mile; I sat in my home economics class which looked out over the field where this mile was to take place. I don’t remember anything I learned in class that day, but I can vividly picture the view of that field out the window next to my desk and the anxiety that buzzed from my brain to the extremities of my body and back. In my freshman year of college, I had to run two miles in under twenty minutes to pass the class. After two attempts, I made it, loathing every minute of it. I celebrated with chips, queso and a few rounds of Halo.
However, somewhere around the time I turned twenty I decided working out and eating healthier felt better than not. A few years into a healthier lifestyle, I decided running the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon would be a good challenge. I signed up and then trained for about ten weeks. Prior to this training the most I had run at any given time was three miles. Anything beyond three miles felt undoable. As the weeks ticked by my mileage increased. I developed a plan for running two miles at a time and then walking for two minutes and then repeating that pattern until I had reached my goal mileage. Along the way, aided by an iPod full of music an downloaded sermons, I learned to enjoy the activity.
When I got to the race, this alternating running two miles, walking two minutes was my gameplan for running the full 13.1 miles. I reached the two-mile mark and felt great, endorphins running through my body. So, I kept running, intending to pick up my plan at the four-mile mark. But I felt great at that point as well. I kept going with the intent of walking at the halfway mark. But again, I felt great. I began to wonder if I could just run the whole thing. And I did. I also began to wonder if I was running in record time. Surely, I was near the top. I was not. Crossing the finish line with all the crowd cheering and receiving my finisher’s medal felt great. Realizing that I was about an hour over the fastest time felt humbling. But I was hooked. Running had become a part of my life in such a way that I couldn’t imagine being the kid staring out the window in anxiety over a mile.
In the years since I started running, we have moved five times and in each of those new locations I developed running routes for various mileage requirements. The last three moves have been in proximity to the park and as such have given me a deep knowledge of the park and its winding and circuitous paths. I run for exercise, to clear my head and to get out my nervous energy. I run in the park because it is a beautiful oasis of green grass and trees, ever-changing seasonal floral arrangements, contemplative buildings and structures, and flowing fountains amid a bustling cityscape and busy urbanites.
The park has become a close friend to me. I know its paths well and consider the ability to successfully answer someone asking me how to navigate its labyrinthine paths a badge of honor. I do a lot of thinking and processing in the park. I write sermons and work through ministry plans while I run through the park. I think about the past and dream about the future in the park. I argue with an imagined and remembered version of my wife in the park. I have wrestled with God over various aspects of my life in the park. I was stopped cold during an intense time of prayer over a major life decision when I saw a buck sauntering across my path and staring at me in the park. I meet with God in the park, and he meets with me.
After parking the truck, I sat for a few minutes scrolling mindlessly through my phone as the boxing match ensued. Then, without much pomp or circumstance, I opened the door, and navigated my watch through the running activity screens to activate the GPS. After a quick stretch I walked over to the path connected and hit “start” on my watch. I was running. The spirit won.
We live about three-quarters of a mile from the park. Whereas previously, Forest Park only factored into any runs of six miles or longer, the park is now a daily part of my life. I have four-, five-, and six-mile runs that all start at my house and take me through various parts of it—the visitor’s center, tennis and basketball courts, the Zoo, the Boat House, the Muny, and many big, beautiful houses and places of worship and commanding apartment buildings. On special days, after I drop my kids off at school, I park at the visitor’s center and my entire run is in and through the park. These days are typically Fridays because those are my days off and they garner more time for running. I try to hit somewhere between six and ten miles on these days. The park is a rectangle and the general path around the park follows this shape in its own winding way. Starting in the parking lot of the visitor’s center and going all the way around the park along the path meant for bikes garners a runner about a six-mile run give or take a few hundredths of a mile. With a little creativity that six miles can turn into seven, eight, nine, or ten miles, and so on.
The eight miles I ran on Friday, May 16th took me in a “figure-8” around the park visiting many of my favorite spots along the way. It wasn’t particularly hot, and the massive trees surrounding and permeating the park provided ample amounts of shade at just the right times. I do not remember what I thought through on that run. I have run that route enough times that I can picture it, but I could not picture it with any sort of particularity that would make that eight-mile run stand out from the eight-mile run I had a few weeks prior or any from last year or two years ago. I did not really pay much attention to the surroundings. They were simply a backdrop for my mileage and my thoughts. I did not know that run was the last time that view would be a part of my life.
Before and After Events
About a week before the events of May 16th, my eldest daughter asked if she could talk with me about the events of September 11th, 2001. They were discussing it in her history class and her teacher had tasked the class to talk with an adult who lived during that event. I was a junior in high school when three planes were hijacked and flown one each into both World Trade Center “Twin Towers” and the Pentagon while a fourth was hijacked and headed for an unknown location before passengers on board recaptured the plane from the hijackers. It crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
I was a member of our high school’s marching band. We were in the thick of preparation for our fall schedule of performances. Every weekday morning I arrived at the school at 6:30, groggy and sluggish. I set my backpack down near my seat inside the band room, grabbed my mellophone, and sat waiting for further instructions, praying the day was an inside music rehearsal day. Usually, it was not. We were out on the practice field running through blocking formations repeatedly, sometimes section by section as the sun slowly started to creep above the horizon. My high school functioned on a block schedule where I would have half of my classes over a longer period one day—each class was about an hour and a half—and then the other half the next day—“A” days and “B” days. Band was first period on one of those days, but we had 6:30 band every day. On the days we had actual band practice, we were out on the marching field for around two and half hours.
September 11th, 2001 was one of those long days: not an inside rehearsal day and not a short practice day before heading to some other first hour class. While we were out practicing our formations, each of the first three planes had crashed into their targets. I can vividly remember coming back into our band classroom to put my instrument away and our principal coming over the loudspeaker to let us know about these events. I sank into my chair trying to grasp what he had said. This was before the iPhone and tablets so the only way we got updates was if our teachers turned on the news or kept us up to date. All day I kept waiting for them to send us home, but they did not. Every class was started with the same whispered question among my peers: “Did you hear what happened? Do you think there’s more coming? Are we next?” Once the final bell rang, I raced home to turn on the news. I called my now wife who was then my girlfriend to discuss everything. I stayed up late into the night repeatedly pouring over the same news feed just waiting for another attack on our country, waiting for some act of retaliation from our country, for some indication that our national leaders were going to respond.
September 12th, 2001, I woke up and arrived at 6:30 band just like I had the day before. We went through all our routines, practiced our music and then went to our first period classes. But all we could talk about was the day before. On September 11th, we had woken up in one reality and went to bed in a different one. That was a “before and after” event. Life was one way before the event and another way after the event.
These events happen on different scales for everyone. Sometimes they are large scale like 9/11 and effect an entire nation. Sometimes they are small scale like the death of a loved one and effect an individual or a family. Sometimes they are in between. These are headstones in our timelines declaring, “here lies the life and history of so and so until its death on such and such a day”—the day the event occurred and everything in the timeline thereafter was forever changed. And like mourners gathered at a funeral hearing the blessing of some religious leader reciting words of comfort we try to figure out how life will function in the aftermath. We are faced with the stark reality of this new world we inhabit that is marked by loss and absence. We move through the cycles of grief and wonder why we took the “before” for granted and did not pay more attention to what we did not know we were going to lose. The “after” becomes consumed with regrets about the “before” and thoughts of “if we’d only known”.
When I think about my run on May 16th, this is what I think about. I did not know what I was going to lose that day as I ran amongst trees of whose shade I have been running under for over fifteen years. They were a backdrop, and now I mourn how little attention I paid them.
The morning of Saturday, May 17th, started just the same, though in the back of my mind I knew that this run would be different. I was avoiding this run for all the same reasons, but this time there was the added realization that my route was at the very least going to be different and there was a likelihood that it would be non-existent. Like the day previous, it was clear and sunny. But unlike the day previous, a tornado had ripped through the area the afternoon before. At about 2:45 on the afternoon of May 16th, an F3 tornado with a path of destruction two miles wide at some points, had roared through the St. Louis suburb of Clayton, Missouri, before crossing Skinker Boulevard—the western border of St. Louis City, tearing through the northern half of Forest Park and then wreaking havoc through the homes and neighborhoods of north St. Louis City. It moved across the Mississippi River and into Illinois before dissipating.
The main area of destruction started about three blocks south of our home. The night before my wife had walked a chunk of the path I normally run and sent pictures of the damage. News reports I had read gave me glimpses of it as well. But all of it second-hand. I had not yet seen it myself. I was not sure that I wanted to face the destruction. My route would take me right through it and to be sure I did not even know if I could get through it. To run would be to face reality and make it my own—not as a spectator or commentator but as a participant of this new reality full of loss and absence. To run would require me to join the ranks of St. Louisans mourning at the gravestone of what was and what would never be again. Cue the boxing match inside my head: run or do not run; mourn or deny.