Re-Run

It was going to be great. The crème de la crème of road races had been on my calendar since the first of the year. 10-10-10. What a day to do something memorable! Finishing a marathon without spraining my ankle was the goal and I was convinced that there could not be a finer setting for a re-run than that of Chicago. Could not have chosen finer people to run alongside either. It was to be Sam’s 11th and Kristin’s 1st…a veteran’s experience and first-timer’s joy. What a combo. And could there be a better pre-race, carb-loading meal than that of Chicago deep dish pizza? Absolutely not.
The hotel was to be out of this world (thanks again, Kat!)…on the Magnificent Mile, just steps away from Nordstrom’s. A fabulous pre-race night’s sleep would be mine with a careful selection from the pillow menu. (No kidding…the pillow menu.) And could one choose a more delightful post-race retreat than a rooftop terrace? Again, I think not. Yes. This re-run was going to be great...

...great, that is, until the following happened:


Back in late June, with multiple short runs, two 13-milers and one 15-miler under my belt… I was grounded. The pain was excruciating and the swelling was immense. At first it was believed that I had a stress fracture in my right foot. After spending a week on crutches, the MRI ruled that out (thank goodness) and I limped out of the doctor’s office with tenosynovitis. Marathon hopes were dim, but still aflame.

After 3 weeks the swelling decreased enough to wear a barely laced running shoe. Clearance came to run again. And I did so...for just one measly mile. And the next day, I couldn’t wear a shoe...not even a barely laced one. Pain was now isolated on the top of my foot. (?) I couldn’t find a runners forum under the sun with a post about top-of-the-foot pain. Bottom-of-the-foot pain? Thousands of entries. Top? Nada.

After missing 4 weeks of training, marathon dreams were dead and I was beyond disappointed. And to make matter worse, I was still scratching my head wondering what I had done. Eventually the swelling abated. I slipped my foot in a flip-flop for the first time in five weeks and instantly, the searing top-of-foot pain returned. Suddenly, I remembered a little incident I had in a crowded mall with my flip-flops. Suffice it to say, the flip didn’t flip, so I nearly flopped and what ordinarily would have been a harmless, painless little soft-tissue injury between my 1st and 2nd toe turned into a massive edematous nightmare after the next scheduled 15 mile run. And then it all made sense.

I was relieved on the one hand (thank heavens this wasn’t a real running injury), yet greatly disappointed on the other. I texted my friends to dispense the news. Veronica immediately texted back to let me know that she and Sarah had just booked tickets to Chicago to cheer me on. Go figure. This fabulous event was to be the high point of an otherwise not-so-fabulous year. And the see saw thuds, yet again…

Yet, as always, there’s a story to be told. And while it can’t compare to the glory of a finish line, it is still a good one. I went to Chicago. The pizza was delightful; the hotel, amazing; the city, fabulous; and the friends, so wonderful. How thankful I was to have Sarah and Veronica there to keep me company to watch the 45,000 runners run by. We were able to see Sam on the course, but missed Kristin by just a few minutes. We met them both at the finish line. They cranked out 26.2 long miles in the 90-degree horrendous heat. Pretty impressive. So proud of them.


While in Chicago, I especially enjoyed walking around the windy city with Sarah and Veronica. Just being there remined me why I love that place so much. What a town! I left two things undone while there two years ago: The Drake and a run along Lake Shore Drive. Consider those done.


And be it noted that while on that run in Chicago, I did manage to crank out 26.2 along the shores of Lake Michigan!

So what’s next? You guessed it: Chicago 2011.
10/9/11…when 26.2 minutes turn into 26.2 miles!

Many congrats and high praises to Kristin and Sam for finishing. You sucked it up and slugged it out with 26.2 miles of horrifically hot Chicago pavement. Reading your "Done!" texts was a thrill. Proud of you both!

Remembering Grandma

Laurie Davis Blakey
January 14, 1926 - October 1, 2010

She would call you Honey, Darling, or Angel. "Ladybug" if you were a girl. "Rascal" if you were a boy. In return, you knew her as Mrs. Blakey, MaMa or Miss Laurie, with an accent on the "ie". All of us grandchildren knew her as Grandma and the memories of her are many: divinity candy, macaroni and cheese, spinning in a stockpot on her kitchen floor, and being “squeezed into", to name a few.

My memories of Grandma began during the middle of her life. It was the 1970’s and all her children had left home. As survivors of the Great Depression, both Grandma and Granddad had always been overly cognizant of money matters. They would tend to save what others might spend. In her 40’s, Grandma decided to change that. She enrolled in the Savannah Vo-Tech School where she studied to earn not only a GED, but also a certification to be a nurse’s aid. She went on to care for patients at Candler hospital for the next several years. She had been a homemaker all of her life and at the point when many are busy having a mid-life crisis, she was determined to change the course of her future.

And with this newfound income, she had a small purse of spending money to use as she pleased. And what pleased Grandma was traveling. She, along with her sister Mittie Ann, took chartered bus trips to exciting places like Niagra Falls, the Amish Country and the Wild West. And wherever she went, she’d pick up little knick-knacks, like collectible spoons and salt & pepper shakers. Her capitalist endeavors even had her selling Avon at one point and each of us have a small collection of Avon Christmas ornaments to vouch for the years she sold their products. Yes, she truly was a woman of great vision. And she had great “vision” in a literal sense, as well. With watchful eyes, she would sit at her kitchen table, peering through her back window with a full view of our property. If a car pulled into the driveway or the back porch light was left on, Grandma always knew before we would. She had our home under constant surveillance. We never needed an alarm system with our 24 hour security guard always on duty.

Proverbs 31 tells us of a woman who works with strong arms and eager hands. Grandma had both. With unmatched strength, speed and eagerness, she could out-shell, out-snap and out-silk anyone in the family when the butterbeans, snap beans and corn were picked. And she used her hands eagerly to do other things that brought her even more joy than snapping and shelling. She was an impressive seamstress who rose to the occasion when Aunt Sarah needed a wedding dress. Yards of white satin fabric were transformed to a floor-length gown with a glorious long train, accented with lace appliques, all secured to the dress by her eager, competent hands. And if that wasn't enough, she found the time to sew her own dress to wear to the wedding, too!

She loved to embroider, crosstitch and crochet. In her lifetime, she made Christmas stockings for each person in the family…all 14 of us. For hours on end I remember her sitting in her recliner with a crochet needle in one hand and thread in another. Crocheting three bedspreads and three dining room tablecloths took her months, but it was time well-spent, as these brought such beauty to our homes. Her needlework was calculated and well-planned. She took great care to never leave anyone out. She cross-stitched a sampler about the joys of having a son not only for her two biological sons, but for Uncle Earnie as well. Aunt Sarah has a similar verse about daughters, and of course the same verse hangs in my mother’s home and in Aunt Fran’s, too. She cross-stitched and framed eight samplers of 1 Corinthians 13, with the intent that all the grandchildren would receive one on our wedding days. And while she didn’t endure long enough to see Katie and me walk down the aisle, we’ve been told we have one waiting for us. Last, but not least, perhaps her hallmark handiwork was that of the snowflake ornament. She crocheted literally hundreds of these threaded Victorian decorations. Year after year, a final dusting of Grandma’s snow has always brought life to our Christmas trees.

And as she aged, multiple hip problems landed her in a motorized wheelchair. Yet even at that point, her eager hands continued to serve her well. Initially she handled her new ride with the precision of a stock-car driver. She made those four wheels her primary means of transportation and could often be seen driving the streets of our neighborhood, making visits to neighbors and even setting out to conquer the Community Center. Dad secured a bright orange flag on the rear frame in hopes of increasing her visibility to oncoming traffic. Thank heavens, she never had an incident. Granddad eventually bought her an accessible van and at that point, she was truly unstoppable. Her small-scale community outings matured into daily shopping trips. She preferred the Savannah Mall because it was less crowded and I’m certain her fellow shoppers appreciated her insight. For, it was about that time that her reflexes and reaction time began to decline a bit and her mobility skills followed suit. Take a tour of her house and you’ll see evidence—scratches on the door frames, deep gouges in the walls—scars of her maneuvering that was at times, a little less than accurate!

And then, arthritis began to creep in. She laid the crochet needles to rest and scaled back her time in the power chair. Yet her hands remained eager—now with a remote control. She’d flip back and forth between PBS and TBS…listening to the Lawrence Welk Show and watching the Braves play. Justin would often join her (for the Braves, that is--not Lawrence Welk). It comes as no surprise that Justin is a Braves fan. But as for Grandma…you’d probably never suspect it.

And it should be noted, despite the arthritis, her eager hands would always thumb through the literature on top of her end table. The contents of that table fluctuated, but you could be certain that you’d always find five items there: her Bible, her Libby Tyner Sunday School Class membership book, the church’s phone directory, a copy of Open Windows and a book from the church library, as well. From her recliner, she’d read the Word, she’d pray, and she’d operate a ministry of encouragement via telephone—calling church members oftentimes on a weekly basis to let them know that they were both being thought of and prayed for. For years, she was a member of the Intercessory Prayer Group…a phone-tree of spiritually solid women who committed to bringing the needs of others to the Throne of Grace. In an age long before Twittering and Facebooking, she modeled how to go about staying connected to a community. Heb 10:25 urges us “to not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.” Through this phone ministry, even when Grandma’s physical condition hindered her from attending church services, it never stopped her from meeting together as she continued to encourage those she knew.

I thought it was especially fitting that late last week Open Windows, the small devotional book that was always on her end table, would quote Psalm 3.

“Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver.’
Yet, you are a shield about me. You bestow glory and lift up my head.”

Last Friday God demonstrated his deliverance to Grandma. He gave her glory and lifted the head of a sweet spirit whose worth was never measured by the abundance of her possessions, but by her possession of the Abundant One.