I ran because she couldn't

We have all seen the  t shirts..."Cheaper than therapy".  Well guess what?  It is.  My world was turned upside down a few weeks ago when my mother went from a fairly active independent person to being paralyzed from the neck down.  As a matter of fact, today is her first full day out of ICU.  The good thing is that her condition will be temporary.  The bad news is that it will take months of rehab and therapy to get her back to somewhat normal.  With all this going on, I had to reorganize my priorities and well running was put low on the list.

But the other day I decided to put everything to the side and just take off for a run.  It was the best decision I had made in a while.  This may sound selfish but it felt good to think only about myself. It felt good to breathe in fresh air and feel the earth below  my feet as I pushed forward on the trails.  It felt good to see the birds flying above and the cranes just standing in the water.  It was as if all was normal in the rest of the world and I was once again living a normal life.  

During my run, my thoughts ran as free as my feet.  As I ran I thought about my mom and her inability to even move her toes.  My mother was healthy but she didn't exercise.  I thought about how often we talked about her just walking around the block and she said it was too much and she was too busy.  And now she begs to just be able to move her foot across the bed.  I realized how much I take my ability to move for granted.  I thought about all the things I am physically capable of doing and choose not to do them.

And then I thought about all the times I was disappointed in myself because my time was not as great as I wanted it to be.  That I had to take an extra minute of walking during my intervals.  Have you ever done that?  Have you ever focused on what you thought was a failure without realizing all that you really accomplished?   Don't do it. Don't go there. It's a waste of energy. Focus on all you have accomplished.

Life is too short too short to waste time on the negative.  Be thankful that you got out there.  Seriously, be thankful.  My mother struggles to raise one finger on either hand and considers it a victory when she can move two.  She doesn't have time to dwell on the things she can't do but focus on the things she can and the small improvements she makes each day. So until she can run, I will run for her.