The Time Traveler

 "There is something magical about running;

after a certain distance, it transcends the body.

Then a bit further, it transcends the mind.

A bit further yet, and what you have before you,

laid bare, is the soul."

- Kristin Armstrong, Writer and Runner

I love the way each and every run takes you on a different journey. Like today, for example, I had been running for about 25 minutes and found myself in my old neighborhood of Eagle Harbour. By this time I was deep in “the zone” when I saw my mom. She was walking towards me, brown leaves falling all around her and she was smiling.  We didn’t speak, or embrace, but our breath mingled and hung in the air. Time stopped, somehow, and an unspoken conversation was had in that moment. The message I got from her was “yes” and now as I sit at my desk thinking back on that moment, I’m wondering what “yes” actually means.

You see my mom has been dead for 33 years. The anniversary of her death is approaching...December 11th...which might be one of the reasons she is on my mind. She died of pancreatic cancer when she was just 40-years young and I was 18. Her death was quite sudden on the grand scale of things...7 months from diagnosis to death...and left a huge, terrible abyss in our family life which I still struggle with 33 years later.

It’s not unusual for me to see her ghost from time to time, but today’s encounter was more like a trip back to a different time passage...back to 1978, before she died. Maybe it was because the moon was full last night, or maybe it was because I was so deep in the zone that the echoes of the past simply drew me back. But still I wonder, is it my thoughts that bring her back, or is there something back here she left behind? 

Now I’m not one to live in the past, life is too short for that, but wouldn’t it be something if we could “travel back” to a different time passage when ever we wanted or needed to. If you could somehow slow the beat of your mind and find yourself sitting across from auntie Madge, who passed on some time ago, sharing a pot of tea and swapping stories. Would life be any easier? Would we find inner peace?

There have been times when I’ve gone through sticky patches, alone, and I’ve searched for her to guide me through. You could say that I’ve continued to lean on her all these years even though she’s in another time passage. But my “moments” with her are always on her terms, not mine, and even though I know she is “there” somewhere, she is always the one that chooses the moment to show herself and surprisingly it’s not always when I am at the end of my rope or dealing with some dramatic event in my life. When I really think about the times that I’ve seen her or felt her presence, it’s usually after a storm has passed, not during it. Maybe the lesson here is that there are no shortcuts in life and though the road is well traveled by those before us, we need to experience each and every step on our own solo journey and to weather a few storms along the way in order to grow as human beings.

Afterward, I think of much I could have said, but didn’t. Words are not needed. It’s the energy of her presence that I am left with and the positive conveyance of her message. Somehow, the changes I am going through now in my life must be good. And it’s comforting to know that I am never really completely alone, she will always be there, just out of sight, in another time passage.

I miss you mom.

 Marjory Atkinson

August 24, 1938 - December 11, 1978