So I'm standing inside the rear lobby of the Sydney Opera House, about to go into a concert (The Cat Empire), taking a moment to reflect my surroundings. The sun has set and across the bay I can see the eerie glowing face of the Luna Park entrance as an old ship sails by. The Circular Quay that surrounds it is busier than usual because the TSC Sydney Marathon (part of the Abbott World Major Marathons) is happening the very next morning.
I have run two world majors and, not-shockingly, the energy of the city the night before is no different with Sydney, a slowed down lull... runners with their families, all trying to not overdo sight-seeing to save their legs for the race, people holding their race bibs for photo ops outside with the opera house in the background. It feels similar to the nights before I ran Chicago or New York: apprehensive excitement, a smoldering buzz of eagerness.
But tonight I wasn't here to get ready for a race and it's landed on me all at once how much I have distanced myself from my love of running since New York... and not by coincidence, but rather because of the fact that my mom died the day after I ran the New York City Marathon, not even knowing, for the second time in a row, that her daughter was running a marathon.
I had run Chicago the year before in 2022, and it landed in my heart as one of my top five days of all time. There is a glory to running the streets with 50,000 other people who all committed to train for this one day where we get to own the streets of some of the busiest cities in the world, doing what we love.
My mom called me the afternoon after the Chicago Marathon asking for computer advice. The anger came out of me viscerally and I asked her, "How can you seriously be calling me to help you with software and not even acknowledge that I literally just ran my first marathon?" She got defensive, snapped back, "I can't help it that Facebook never shows me your posts anymore!" and I lost it at that... that she couldn't be bothered to even talk to me, couldn't exert any energy to know anything about me.
She didn't know how to appreciate it or feel pride in me, couldn't express any belief that I had done something to be proud of, and so I said those words to her and immediately recoiled, asking myself, "Who do you even think you are to demand admiration from your mom like this? That's so narcissistic of you!"
I was remembering all the other times people had scolded me for criticizing how low of a bar my mom had for parenting, the scolding always came with an air of, even when I was still a child myself,"Why don't you grow up and acknowledge what a child your mom is and take care of her, alright?"
I got into running in 2017, the year my son was born, the desire emerging from a dark place of feeling like a heavy iceberg, suddenly thawing after an ancient decades-long emotional ice age. I needed to burn free from the shackles of gravity, yearned to spryly sprint hills.
And in 2022, at what felt like a peak moment, my mom flattened all of that growth and emotion in me with a question about how to install a Windows operating system update. I told her to leave me alone, hung up on her. I walked around Chicago for a few more days wearing my medal with pride but not failing to notice that every other person there was surrounded by friends and family that I didn't have.
And then in late 2023, I ran NYC. TSC had taken over sponsorship of the series that year and the TSC and Abbott branding were plastered all over Manhattan. Roads shut down ahead of time, getting up hours before dawn to take the Staten Island Ferry to the start line.
It wasn't a top 5 day for me though. I crossed the finish line limping. I'd been in PT off and on again in the months of training leading up to the race, but it didn't seem like anyone involved understood what my actual injury was. Hip opening exercises seemed to alleviate some of it and kept me straggling across the finish line, where I crumbled into the ground, upset that I had only had a 10-minute PR. But then I smiled because, hey, I still had a 10-minute PR.
The glory was short-lived once again though.
The next morning, I was standing at the intersection of 34th and Lexington, waiting to cross the street and staring at a guy wearing a large foam Statue of Liberty costume spinning a sign advertising tourist ferry rides. My mom's sister Sheila called me, but I let it go to voicemail, needing a second to take in what a call like that could mean. Once again, no one in my family knew I was running a marathon, so I knew it was very likely something about my mom... and I was not ready to have my mom inadvertently ruin another marathon for me.
I texted Joel, "My mom's probably dead or about to die," unable to say that to myself quite yet. My mom was a frequent flyer at the hospital, usually for things that didn't feel like they warranted a hospital visit. As a consequence of living it by proxy through my mom from a young age, I also am a hypochondriac, and have many times used my mom as a calibration for when something is legitimately a medical emergency and when it's just me trying to fabricate a crisis to feel in control of my anxiety about something. In my mom's case, I always suspected she was having a panic attack about something and would use the hospital as a container for whatever it was. If the panic attack had something to do with me, it usually meant I had to sacrifice my thing to now worry about my mom.
In my head, this just felt like another one of those moments and I bubbled over, seething with resentment, how dare she use yet another urinary tract infection to steal my moment? And why were these moments always timed around my big moments? I hated it so much. But somehow I knew it was different. My aunt rarely called me.
I called my aunt back, still not ready to know what, but knowing I'd be harboring anger over an unknown catalyst until I actually confirmed what was going on.
And just like that, my second marathon was over, and now I was dealing with a parent hundreds of miles away on life support for only a few more hours, me alone in a large city holding the question of what is the difference between what other people expect me to do and what actually feels like it would give me the most peace to do.
I stayed in New York. I had to remind myself... that if I were dying.... my mom would not have come to me. She would have had an excuse not to come and probably shared it with others framed in platitudes and tears so she wouldn't have to feel guilty about it. But years later I ask myself, "Wouldn't her excuse to not come to my deathbed have sounded just the same, just as rehearsed and dramatic?," devestatingly covering up the truth: Going there was an act of restraint because I was too angry to meet the tone of the room she was in.
As I stood on the train platform that evening to go to midtown to see Hamilton on Broadway, Aunt Sheila called once again to give me my mom's time of death shortly after 6PM. I didn't feel anything. I sat in silence on the train, my eyes fixed on the neon yellow and orange seats, the too-dark wood paneling of a dated subway car that like my mom, felt washed out and uncared for.
Leaving the subway station, I had to French step up the stairs, my knees still unyieldingly stiff from the race. Half of me was caught up in the embarrassment of not caring enough about my mom's impending death.... I couldn't even feel the pain in my legs because of it, only noticed when it took me nearly a full minute to lower myself into the theater seat as people nearby watched and chuckled knowingly of my acute plight, but nothing of my freshly deceased mom.
My mom had spent my entire childhood reminding me of how much I owed her for her service as a mother, but I felt so awful because the only things she had done for me felt small and insignificant. And I felt shame for what a terrible daughter that must make me. For not literally being able to run after I had already run too far.
And that was my last serious race.
For weeks after her death, every time I tried to run, even when I was clear-minded and focused on running, a few miles in, I'd suddenly feel a heaving pressure in my chest and the urge to sob. I'd have to stop. tears uncontrollably streaming down my cheeks, explaining to concerned bystanders that no I'm not okay, but also yes I'm fine and don't need assistance.
It was the only time I sobbed, inexplicably, thoughtlessly.
The sobbing made me angry, pulled me from my passion.
I wanted to go back to a time where I was feeling the giddy joy of becoming a local legend on Strava or those extremely rare funny signs at a race that haven't been done a million times over already that made me laugh with my full body as I ran.
But I didn't feel like I was allowed to feel that way... because it was selfish, lacked deference.
But deference to what? A mom who loved me to her own capacity but fucking sucked at being a parent? A parent who repeatedly mocked me, spoke cruelly to me, neglected me, and left me with people who abused me when I was still a child? At what point am I allowed to just say "fuck it, this woman stole the glory of my biggest moments and I didn't deserve that."?
The signage for the Sydney Marathon, the TSC logos, the Abbott Branding, the ferries carrying the people in running gear back and forth, the hundreds of overly descriptive signs telling you where to go for every possible thing you might need as a participant or spectator of the race. Me attending a theatrical performance in lockstep with a world major marathon... this time one that I'm not even participating in.
It took me right back to New York, the last marathon, the moments before she died. How for weeks on end after the death, I wasn't convinced she was really dead, not because the denial gave me any false hope, but because the loss itself felt shapeless and invisible.
And now while I'm no longer as mad at her, I'm now mad with myself over how long the angry grief has claimed my legs. The mysterious injury had been diagnosed two years prior. A torn hip labrum. An incredibly common runner's injury caused by chronic inflammation of the joint. I'd had the surgery shortly after. Rehabbed. Resumed running. But my leg still felt stiff, stuck in place from the moment it was injured.
I want to run races... but feel like I can't. I want to sprint again, but keep telling myself to take it easy. I'll get sick, have a night of bad sleep, take a vacation, and lose a week of running. Suddenly a weekly long run on a Saturday I'd been running for years was worth skipping because of light rain.
I couldn't blame my mom for that part. That was on me.
I need to run a race again. I need to give people high fives on running trails, I need to tap a "punch here for 1-up" sign on a race course.
