Doing What We Can, and then Doing More

Long run day, today. 10 miles. My time wasn't awesome, and my miCoach said I was only in my target zone 37% of the time, but that's another story for another day. The point is, it was a long run, and it was hard, and more than enough time for me to wonder why I'm doing this. Why does the girl who couldn't run a mile when she was young(er) and able(er) want to do it now?

The short of it? Because I can.

So? There are lots of things I can do, right? I can ride horses. I can write (sorta). I can sing (depending on who you ask). But nobody cares about that stuff but me.

A mentor of mine who was also a salesman and no doubt quoted a long line of salesman when he told me this, once said to me, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Then, of course, he went about telling me how to convince people I care. He called it 'the dancing bear act.' He was good at it. I rode along with him on sales calls, and he was convincing. I believed he cared. Thing was, I went to the same sales school he did, so I knew that once he got those people eating out of his hands, he misrepresented, lied, and misled them to get their money.

It's no wonder I failed at sales. The point is, I can do what he told me to do, and people would think I care. I can hold hands. I can hug. I can squeeze shoulders and elbows. I can shake my head sadly. But I don't. I'm not big on touching. I don't want you to touch me, and I won't touch you. That doesn't mean I don't care. It means that those things coming from me would not be genuine. But I did get his message.

Actions speak louder than words.

And when we're talking about cancer, something that often renders us helpless, hopeless, unable, and incapable on so many levels, all that's left to focus on is what we can do, each of us, individually, to heed Kim Manners' direction to "Action!"

I can run. I'm not good at it. I have days like today when every direction seems to be uphill and into the wind and I get passed by a lady leading a donkey. (I later passed her... twice.) But I can make the distance. So, I will.

Not just for Kim.

For Danny, too.

You wouldn't know Danny. A lot of people wouldn't, never got the chance. I met him when I was at a very low place in my life. I'd left grad school less than a year before that, spent the next months jobless, and then, pursuing the sales job that I knew was never right for me. I lost my car. Lived in apartment with no electricity, sold my plasma twice a week to buy groceries, and barely managed that. A dark, dark, place, though, admittedly, not the darkest.

Now, this could be a story about my hubby, because I met him at that time, too, but it's not, just another Danny.

This Danny I met when I was at the lowest my self worth had ever been. I'd just lost the sales job, first and only job I was 'let go' from. Not that I didn't see it coming. I sucked at sales. I just couldn't take people's money knowing how hard it was to live without it. Backward, whatever. I just couldn't do it. And what does a girl with a college degree and three semesters of grad school do for a living? She goes to a temp agency, and when they tell her all they have is manufacturing positions, she says, "Yes, please," and "Thank you."

It was the second job they sent me on. I worked there for a week before I met Danny. As a temp, I didn't have a regular shift, so as long as they needed help, I went. I was on my seventh day in a row of twelve hour shifts, on my feet, on concrete, doing my best to flounder through whatever task they gave me with almost no instruction. I was tired, and sore, and near tears, and just trying to do my best to not fail, because I couldn't fail again, and Danny came over to me, called me "Baby," like my hubby calls me "Darlin'" and showed me how to make it through the day. After that, he asked for me to be in his department all the time, and I got a regular shift. I also got hired on before my ninety-day trial was up.

I don't remember how many years I worked in that department. I was a cover operator, and Danny was the Cover Lineman. He was responsible for giving us our breaks and often didn't have time to take his own, because if he did, the line would get backed up so far he couldn't catch it up. Smoking wasn't allowed in the plant, but Danny often had a cigarette lit down under the strapper. No one ever said anything to him so long as he did his job. Just like no one ever said anything about all the infected cuts on his hands from the cardboard and strapping. People did say he was too skinny.

He said he knew.

Danny was always going to different doctors. They told him to eat more. He ate. He drank cans of Slim Fast like water because they're basically protein shakes and pretty high in calories. Never gained an ounce. They told him to stop smoking cigarettes. He said that wasn't going to happen. They told him had to stop smoking weed. He told them that wasn't the problem. They didn't believe him, I guess.

Danny was too skinny when I met him, working overtime for his wife and five kids, and he was too skinny when I got promoted to another position. I was happy to hear he moved to a warehouse position, even if it was at night so I didn't get to see him, because he got to drive a forklift instead of dragging heavy things around all day and wearing himself out.

He still didn't gain weight. He lost it.

One day I met him in the break room. He was choking down a bowl of Chunky Soup. Choking it down, hand shaking, and his Adam's apple working around every bite like it was dry sand. I asked him if he was still going to the doctor. He said they were still blaming it on the weed, but he had an appointment for a chest x-ray, at least.

He said he just wanted to stop feeling so... weak.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what was on Danny's chest x-ray. Though, it apparently took more than a general practitioner.

I don't know exactly how it went from there. I hear they told him he had X-amount of time if they didn't treat the cancer, and possibly, Y-amount if they did the treatment, but the treatment wouldn't be easy on him in his condition. Of course, he got the treatment. He wanted to live.

He didn't.

I didn't go to his funeral. I didn't know what to say. What to do. I have a nervous tendency to laugh when I can't cry out loud. I didn't want to be the girl who laughed at his funeral. He would've understood, maybe laughed right along, but he wasn't alone. So, I didn't go.

I doubt there's anything I could've done for Danny to change that outcome. I tell myself he was already well down the path when I met him. But I never put out his cigarette either. I could have.

No, I probably couldn't have saved Danny. And no, I can't cure cancer. But a year ago, I would've told you I can't run. And now I can.

So, I do.

And maybe I do it for myself. On some level, it's a way to make up for all the things I planned to do with my life and didn't, couldn't, can't, whatever. But if by doing it I can show that I care, then that's why I'll keep on doing it, even when every direction is uphill and into the wind.

Because I can.

Until the next bend in the road. Watch out for giant plot holes.

--Tracy