Elianna had a meet in Lincoln Park. It doesn’t take long to get there from here. It was occurring to me earlier that she’s kind of had the same issue as my son where more experience running has not necessarily resulted in faster times. My daughter is one of the most disciplined people I know and in season and out of season has been faithful with her running for years. I really don’t study it or anything, but in my head it just seems to make sense that the more you stick with it the better you’d get.

Her friend on the team has had a similar experience. I think of how much change occurs in their bodies over these years from junior high through the end of high school and even beyond. Every year they are essentially running with a different body. Every season, ever race, is a different experience from the one before. But then there are ones who do get faster and you remember when they were younger and have watched them grow and develop in their running as the leading runners in their races.

So I don’t know. This is probably the hardest course of the season. Dad and two of the boys went their way and me and another one of the boys went our way. I said he didn’t have to come with me but he said it was fine. He was interacting with one of the squirrels along the course. We found our way to the hill but only stayed for the first loop. The next time we were higher up past the hill. When the girls went by we went back to the finish line. I used to cheer for all the runners but I had to let that go.

I have been thinking the past few days about marriage, specifically the marriages of my aunt and my in-laws. I’d never pretend to know the ins and outs of a person’s marriage, but just based on the things I did know about each of them, it seems that even though these marriages went almost 50 and 45 years respectively, there were seeming elements of unfinished business. Longings never met, issues that went unresolved. I kept imagining my father-in-law, in his hospice bed, and what I wished he’d done.

How I would’ve given anything in some moment (not anything, but that’s the saying) to see him wake up, take her hand, and say “Thank you for everything.” And later I thought truly how tragic that any marriage would go without saying it, without so many of these important things being expressed: “Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry.” Are we meant to go that whole way and have there still be barriers? Dreams abandoned? Words unfelt or unsaid, or even love unrecognized? Must all of us wait until eternity to love truly?