Was out running in the sunshine and thinking of this one today.
11 years ago today you were taken from us by neuroblastoma, Adam. The sun was shining that day too as I recall, but it had absolutely no right to be.
I don't often reflect on what once was and what now is, or why. There is no making sense of any of it and I'd have long since gone round the bend if I tried. But today while out running reflecting is precisely what I did. Or rather what happened. It wasn’t a conscious thing, it just occurred as these things do when I run.
I would never have gotten to run as I do were it not for you becoming unwell. Running became my outlet, and the switch has been stuck in the ‘on’ position ever since. It gave me that time and space to just be, clear my mind or gather my thoughts, whatever I needed at any particular moment. And after you died running remained my outlet and helped preserve my sanity. In 2015 I did something I never for a moment thought I’d ever do – run the London Marathon. Now I’ve run it four times, plus New York, Boston, Tokyo, Chicago, and Berlin. This year from April-June I ran the London marathon, a 50-mile ultra marathon along the North Downs Way, and a 100-mile ultra trail marathon around Wasing Park in Berkshire. Those medals, all of my medals, sit in your bedroom, on your pillow or hung from the headboard. This morning I remembered how you used to ask me where I finished and then tell me I was rubbish because I didn’t win … but you still nicked my medals all the same. It made me think of this photo of you, you cheeky little beggar.
And then there’s the other stuff I’m involved in – the charity and advocacy stuff. Even today, this morning, reviewing a paper I’m co-authoring. Who knew I had any interest or intellectual curiosity in scientific medical research, or had a very small yet still meaningful part to play in helping to improve the treatment of children with cancer? I didn’t, none at all until you became ill. On the day we found out you had cancer, almost 4 years to the day before you died, I had no clue about neuroblastoma, or even childhood cancer for that matter. I didn’t even know that the Royal Marsden Hospital, where children with cancer are treated, was just up the road. Actually it’s not even true when I say ‘until you became ill’. For those first 3 months we were parents struggling to come to terms with your diagnosis and all that came with it, and trying as best we could to do whatever it was we needed to do on any given day. It was only when your disease didn’t respond at all that we were thrust into the hellish position of having responsibility for deciding what to do or not to do in relation to your treatment. And another switch got flicked somewhere that would otherwise have forever remained in the ‘off’ position.
So there’s all of that; the running, the charity work, the advocacy. All because those switches got flicked. And I have to be glad they did, because here I am today out running and doing the things I do. Yet simultaneously, with every ounce of my existence, I wish they never had been. And never more so than on days like today. Adam, you are loved forever and missed eternally.
