In grief, I travel,
near or far,
it does not matter.
What matters is to be moving,
in my car,
catching planes,
hopping trains,
going somewhere,
anywhere.
What am I looking for out there
that I cannot find here?
Where is the one I have lost?
“Run like that lady,” the gym teacher at my neighborhood elementary school would instruct his fourth and fifth graders as he pointed toward me. I was known as “the running lady” in my neighborhood because I ran at the school’s dirt track every morning.
I was in my forties then, and I would lope along at a comfortable nine-minute-mile pace, lap after lap, until I had completed my three-mile daily run. The kids clearly thought my way was too boring, and they would sprint past me, stop to catch their breath, walk a bit, and then sprint again. The teacher would shake his head in dismay that the kids could not see the wisdom in pacing themselves.
Having a running routine taught me a lot about myself, and I am grateful to my running mentors who encouraged me along the way.
I remember running with my friend Bob Hickey who would give me tips as we ran. He loved a run with a hill at the end because he said it “builds character.” I remember wanting to stop mid-way up those hills and Bob saying, “You can do it,” and I did.
Bob was part of the Hash House Harriers and he was always looking for a “rabbit” to catch—someone up ahead who was just a bit slower. Overcoming other runners taught me about setting goals and then pushing myself to achieve them.
Establishing a running routine and setting a pace that I could sustain was also how I approached my prayer life.
I remember my first spiritual director, Sr. Catherine Quinn, SHCJ, suggesting I set a specific time every day for prayer. “Just fifteen minutes a day,” she would say. I was resistant, telling her I thought that a routine like that would somehow stifle the Spirit. I finally followed her advice, and the Spirit didn’t seem to mind.
In both these practices, I can look back at my resistances and see how yielding led to greater freedom. I can see how setting aside time every day for exercise and prayer has made them as integral to me as eating and sleeping.
My doctor tells me, “You are my patient I don’t worry about,” because my vitals are good, and I don’t take any medication. Some of that is genetic, of course. But I think the daily exercise and prayer have helped me become more centered, less encumbered.
During both exercise and prayer times, I gain insights into where I am resistant and what is holding me back. I reflect on my day and where I am feeling drawn toward God and where I am feeling pulled away.
That awareness helps me to lean into my fears and anxieties, to let go, trusting that God is with me, encouraging me and sustaining me.
I am turning seventy this week and I can look back and see how my exercise and prayer practices have impacted my life; and I am grateful for the people who encouraged me in both.
I was still young when I read the poem,
When I am old,
and I wondered why anyone would wait
to wear purple.
My wardrobe was saturated with purple—
shirts, jumpers, hats, coats, scarves and gloves.
Even purple shoes
(because life is too short to wear black,
my sister said when we were shoe shopping).
Is purple the color of old women
the way pink is the color of little girls?
Was my love of wearing purple a sign
that I was old before my time?
I wondered about other parts of the poem, too.
Why wait to gobble up samples in shops…
And learn to spit?
Perhaps it is an insight into my upbringing that
I thought store samples were for me and that
I learned to spit as a girl on the farm
(we had contests to see who could spit the furthest),
and I kept on spitting as a women runner.
No, wearing purple was never a sign that
I had become an old woman.
But when I was out for my walk the other day
(wearing my purple jacket, by the way)
and tripped and fell,
I knew I had crossed the a line
and had become
an old woman.
I love you more than you will ever know.
Those were among the final words my friend Ted spoke to me when we were together just before he died from esophageal cancer two years ago.
I told him that I knew how much he loved me, and I believed I had a pretty good idea; we had been good friends for more than thirty years. During his illness, we spoke every day, sometimes two or three times. I knew he loved me.
My friend Lisa recently told me of the death of one of her guy friends. She was devastated by this loss and inconsolable in her grief.
Good guy friends are great gifts. They are also not all that common—which makes them even more precious.
My friend Jim used to tell me that he believed I had good friendships with men because I grew up with brothers (one older and one younger). He believed that growing up with brothers taught me to accept both the gangster and the vulnerable sides of a guy.
I would agree and add, “My brothers taught me to have realistic expectations of men.”
One of the relationships I kept up after I left the FBI was with an agent named Bob Hickey—formally known as Robert J. Hickey, Jr. For ten years after I left the Bureau, Bob and I got together regularly, even though he lived in Washington, D.C., and I was in Philadelphia. Our friendship was important to both of us, and we dedicated time and energy to keeping it alive.
Bob encouraged me in my running, and we often ran the Mall in D.C. I remember a run on one of his visits to Philadelphia; I wanted to quit, and he kept urging me to go on. The run ended at a bridge over a railroad track, and running up that hill seemed impossible. “It’ll build character,” Bob prodded, which was just the dare I needed to dig deep for the last burst of energy. It is also a line that has inspired me when I have faced other challenges.
Then I moved to Canada, and Bob married a woman who seemed a tad bit jealous of our friendship. I tried to reassure her that while I loved Bob dearly, I did not want to marry him, and that I was happy for them. But, things were different after he got married.
Bob loved all things Irish—music, dance, literature—and he loved to visit his relatives in Ireland. The last time we spoke, I was planning my trip to Ireland in August. He was happy for me.
Bob died last summer. Since learning of his death, I have been recalling wonderful memories of our friendship, and I am filled with a deep sense of gratitude. Just thinking of him makes me smile. Like Ted, Jim and the other men who have blessed my life, his friendship brought me great joy.
I love you more than you will ever know.
I was in my early twenties when I first read the book of Isaiah, and chapter 62, verse 3, gave me a visual that I have held onto ever since: You will be a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
Imagine being a diadem, a crown—or more like a tiara I used to think—all shiny and sparkly, held by God. It was a mystical moment—when I could imagine myself as seen and loved by God, cherished and held. I could imagine God smiling just at the thought of me.
After that, I began to collect those moments of awareness—when I knew myself as cherished, when something touched my soul, my essence. I tucked them away in my mind and heart, little treasures I could recall when I needed to feel loved.
In a Christology course in college, the professor demonstrated the experience of Jesus in John’s gospel (In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1) Professor Prusak stood by door at the front of the classroom and then began to walk sideways and ever-so-slowly across the front of the class—repeating “word” as he walked. (Picture this man in a suit, inching across the classroom, murmuring word, word, word, word…)
About three-quarters of the way across the classroom was a chair and when he got to the chair, he stepped up on it, said “word” a few times and then stepped off on the other side. This signified the intensified time of Jesus’ human life when he walked the earth.
Excellent visual, I thought, of Jesus life, and also of my own. God is with me always, and then there are those moments on the chair, when life is intensified, when I am more—more alive, more vibrant, more tuned into God—those moments that remind me what I was created to be.
I was meant to be a diadem in the hand of God—that is what God desires. To live in that awareness, though, requires me to continually forgive (myself and others) so that I can be light and free—and to love myself as God loves me.
When I was younger, I often compared myself to others and came up wanting. Others were kinder, prettier, friendlier, livelier, etc. I never measured up. But, at some point, I learned to let go of the comparisons and move toward comparing myself with myself—trying to be the best me I could be. (Running may have had something to do with this course-correction, because, as a runner, I strove to improve on my personal best rather than worrying about how I compared to other runners).
When I can be my personal best, when I can stay focused on the course God has in mind for me, I can also be freer to support and encourage others along that path. Cooperating rather than competing, accepting rather than judging, shining as God intended.
I started running when I was thirty years old. I wanted to be an FBI agent and one of the qualifications was to run two miles in under sixteen minutes.
Starting slowly, I eventually worked up to three miles, and then I entered a one-mile run to see if I could do an eight-minute mile. I could.
After that, I settled into a running routine of three miles every morning. Outside of some minor running-related injuries, I kept up that routine for twenty years, until a stress fracture forced me to stop running and switch to walking.
I did not particularly like the running part of running; it was more of a chore that I had to get out of the way before I could start my day. What I did like about running, though, was watching my shadow as I ran.
I have body image issues, and have had them for as long as I can remember. I always saw myself as a large person, “big-boned” was a description I often heard growing up. I used to say I was born a size 12 and grew from there. Big bones, big feet, too tall. Even my hair gets bigger when I let it grow out—thick and frizzy, quite like Janis Joplin’s.
I am not scientifically oriented, and shadows (like radio waves and gravity) were a mystery to me.
When I ran, my shadow was a thin person’s shadow. It was some kind of magic, like the house of mirrors where the reflection is distorted. I did not understand how it worked, but I loved it. I was fat, but my shadow was thin.
When running with a friend one time, I commented, “Look at how your shadow reflects you but mine is thinner than I am.” He chuckled, as if I had made a joke, but I was not kidding. I actually believed that his shadow was an accurate reflection of his body and mine was not.
How could that be? I didn’t know, but I knew it was true. I knew I was fat, much fatter than my thin shadow.
Maybe it is age, or the wisdom of age, but I now have a much more realistic image of my body, of myself really. I can hear what other people say about me, how they see me, and I trust it. Not just my physical body, but who I am, my self.
It is a new reality and I sometimes still have to work at letting go of old images. “No more fun house mirrors,” my spiritual director suggested the other day. “No more fun house mirrors,” I concurred.
Madeline Bialecki 