Why I Can Run

Everyday in one way or another I am reminded of what is really important in life. Rent, car payments, student loans, expired contact prescriptions, stale bread, forgetting to put the recycling bin out for the weekly collection, all the "shoulds" I'm told by society and by myself, the gunk around the bathroom faucet, unpacked suitcases in the closet, the unorganized photos and the shoe box, the untouched acoustic guitar, the overdue library books, the past due oil change, the friend I haven't called back yet, the shirt of Jesse's I've been meaning to mend, running low on toilet paper, savings or lack of savings, weddings and babies I need to hurry up and have, the war in Iraq, cruel animal experiments, organic or regular, fries or a baked potato, calories in and calories out, turning 30, asthma, pollution, fitting room mirrors. I could go on and on listing the worries I carry around inside my head, but the point is that none of those really matter when it all comes down to it. All this trivial and superficial stuff is just that- stuff.

Last week my fiance's grand "Pa" died. I'd only met him a handful of times but Jesse spoke of him so much that I truly felt as though I'd known him my whole life. I never met either of my own grandfathers, but if I had I would have wanted them to be just like Bob Nunn. Sometime in the late 50's Bob and his family were in a terrible car accident that left him without the use of his legs. Doctors did not expect him to live very long after the accident, and yet last week he left behind eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren. I was there when the family spread his ashes over his wife and young son's graves. They told stories about him, they hugged and they cried. I'll run for my grandfathers I will never meet and for Bob Nunn who created the good that is the family he left behind.