Sunday, September 18, 2011

Terry Fox Trotting

I happened upon the 31st annual Terry Fox Run/Walk/Wheel/Hop/Cartwheeling today. I completely forgot about it this year and hadn't heard anything in the local media (bad Marnie) but I cheered on the participants and soaked in the good atmosphere. It was nice.

Later in the day, I returned to the area where the run had been in the morning. All the signs, banners, etc had been taken down. There was no sign that there had been hundreds of folks there just hours earlier. I slowly drove by the Terry Fox statue and noticed that there was a single wee bouquet of wildflowers resting at his feet...

A pic of the statue taken on a cold day last winter...
see the toque? ;-) Folks look after Terry.


The poignancy of those delicate lone flowers contrasted with the morning's festivities absolutely floored me and I had to pull over for the tears. The 'Marathon of Hope' run is one thing, but the death of an individual is another.

I'm not entirely sure I understand why, but Terry Fox stirs some of my more profound emotions and has so since I was about twelve. This short video, accompanied by a Stan Rogers song, dissolves me to a puddle.



But I don't want this to be a sad post because really The Terry Fox Run has raised about 500,000 million dollars for cancer research and that is fucking fantastic.

I'll be out Fox Trotting next year and I've already marked it on next years calendar so I don't forget! Until then... here's some baby foxes and their doggy stepmom. She doesn't show until half way through but it's a lovely video et c'est tres francais! You can click the wee 'x' in the top right corner of the blue box to remove it - annoying!



C'est bon, eh?

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