Running For Her Life

How a woman outpaced her grief

- Kerry Campbell

MOM PASSED AWAY IN 2012. SHE had led an active social life creating and managing a food pantry. She did not exercise, though. She managed to give up smoking, but she struggled with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and emphysema by her early sixties. She had strong faith. But when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, her lifestyle choices made recovery from surgery and chemotherapy difficult.

I provided support in every way I could. Cooking meals. Visiting, sending texts, praying constantly. Mom’s death was awful, the worst thing I have ever experienced. And it was a shock that reverberated in my own life—especially when I found out that my good friend Julie, a beloved dance teacher and studio owner, also had cancer. Her strength and positivity in the midst of treatments made me want to live the best life I could. For my children. For the kids I taught in the enrichment preschool music program I ran. For the memory of my mother.

So when my sister Molly suggested to our family that we do a 5K race to support ovarian cancer research, I found myself saying yes. Normally I would have had a very different answer. I hated running. I was never an athlete. I was the dorkiest kid on the softball field in grade school, someone who chased far more pitches than I caught behind the plate. I used to say the only reason I would run was if someone bad were chasing me. My own two children could outrun me by the time they turned five. I didn’t care. I was a mom, wife, daughter, music teacher, singer. I walked and did yoga. I wasn’t a jock. But you don’t have to be a jock to take care of yourself.