Race for life

On Coping #102

We run the Cancer Research 5k Race for Life in Herne Bay.

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It is a hot day but we gather with hundreds of other souls whose lives have been touched by this dreadful and indiscriminate disease.

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Three years ago you ran it with us.

A belly-full of tumours like rocks not enough to hold you down.

That year you raised over ten thousand pounds.

Our target is more modest but as the day arrives we’re nudging close to £3k.

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Our friends join us.

your baby nephew strapped to your sisters chest.

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Half way around our daughter gets a stitch.

She’s overheating.

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A woman claps at us from the side of the path.

Go on darlin’ she says.

You’re doing this for people like me.

I’ve just started chemotherapy.

You’re amazing.

You can do it.

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We cross the line and it doesn’t matter if we’ve run or walked.

We’ve finished.

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I do not know how we are going to stop the brutal march of this bodily anomaly.

But I know we have to keep trying.

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This is one of the few ways we can help.

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Later our son asks me if your parent has cancer does that mean you are more likely to get it.

And the question takes me completely off guard.

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We promised to be honest I think to myself.

To tell them everything.