Just Two More Laps

I live in a northern state, and I’m old enough to know not to walk in the cold or the snow. A knee replacement, hip replacement and a heart attack educated me on safety. So I have been walking at our community high school indoor track, 10 laps per mile, for the last two months.

Some days I have more energy than others, and zip through my hour walk like it was a stroll in the park.

But there are those days when my body just doesn’t respond. After 30 minutes, I can tell.

Just when I think I can’t go on and do one more lap around the track, I pass this sign on the wall;

“We Are Standing On The Line Between Giving Up And Seeing How Much More We Can Take”

So I reach back and I say, “just do 2 more laps”, and then I dedicate those 2 laps to a deceased family member, or a friend whose name that I carry to this day.

“These next 2 laps are for you Stacy”, I replay in my head, thinking of my sweet cousin that left us way too soon.

Then every two laps I choose another that at some moment in time made a difference in my life.

Two laps for Howie, for Cliff, for Mindy and Norma, for Stuart and Norman, for the departed children of my friends. And hoping that I can make a difference in their life one day, I even take two laps for the generations that have yet to be born.

And finally, my best friend Loren takes me home on the last two laps of my hour workout, because we always tried to carry each other to the finish line.

And as I fight for our country, for our freedom, for our democracy, especially when I’m tired, when I sometimes find myself, “Standing On The Line Between Giving Up And Seeing How Much More I Can Take”, I carry their voices and their names with me in my heart, and it keeps me going.

I bring them along with me on this journey, because their spirit is still here, because they still live in many of us, because I know they would want to be part of our struggle, and because they earned the right to be here, too. They need to have someone speak for them, because they can no longer do it for themselves. So I will. It is my way of thanking them for helping to shape me as a human being. And for making America a better place.

So come on friends. Find the people that built your character. Bring them along with you when you are weary. We can’t give up. We won’t give up. We’ve come so far.

And we still have two more laps to go.