Each day since I had heard the news about Jack I rotated between mourning him and struggling to even believe that it was all true. It felt so unbelievable, that he could be gone; it was incomprehensible that one moment he could be this shiny and brilliant person present somewhere in the world, and then gone in another. He had been traveling the globe for three and a half years, his latest trek was a biking trip along the Pamir Highway–a 1200 kilometer mountainous road stretching across Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. He was two weeks away from heading back home when he was struck by a truck on the highway in Uzbekistan.
It had been a few months since I received that call from Maria with the news. I remember speaking to her several times that week; we were doing what we could to mourn together from afar. She had confided in me several times how she kept thinking to herself that maybe it was all a mistake, a mistranslation. She kept torturing herself with the possibility that he wasn’t dead, just injured and slowly recovering. I too had these thoughts, even as hours, days, and weeks passed. Despite two months between his death and his memorial service, I still woke up that morning in shock, as if I were still waiting for someone to tell me it had all been a mistake and that Jack would be coming home soon.
I woke up that morning and somehow felt both nothing and everything. I decided to go for a run, a long one. I have always loved running, and over the years my love for the sport has led me to slowly push the miles further. I mostly ran short and mid-distances in college, though on several occasions I had attempted to train for a half marathon. Unfortunately, I was always set back by injuries, likely from a lack of knowing what I was really doing at the time. Though these injuries never discouraged me, I’m not sure why. I wanted to run a half marathon, and one day even a full marathon.
I don’t have any sort of vivid memory of the conversation, but I vaguely remember telling Jack that I had always dreamed of one day running a marathon, maybe even the New York City Marathon. He’d laughed at me, like I was crazy, as most people likely would at the idea of someone describing the act of running nonstop for hours as a bucket list item. But he loved crazy adventures and challenges. Though the details are hazy, I know for certain that his laugh was not discouragement nor was it disbelief. Jack probably loved it, he loved it when people would just go for things and accept a challenge head on. Even though the memory is very faded in my mind, I’m quite positive that Jack, with a devilish look in his eye and a very sinister smile, told me to do it. Because even though he probably thought I was crazy, he was all in on the idea of me going for something big. I hadn’t thought about that memory until the morning of his memorial service.
Since college I have managed to run several half marathons, having considered a marathon and applying for the NYC marathon lottery several times, to no avail. I had considered their 9+1 program, but it was a big commitment. This program guarantees you a spot in the following year’s marathon–which is not easy to obtain for the non-runners out there. The program requires runners to complete nine different qualifying races and volunteer for one, all in one calendar year. At this point in time I was just getting back into running following a bit of a mental break after some injuries. I had been at it for some time and was hoping to sign up for a half marathon sometime in the wintertime. That morning, I felt that I truly needed a reset before driving out to the suburbs for Jack’s service, so I laced up my Hoka’s and set out for my run. I ran along Chicago’s lakefront path. The skyline view immediately reminded me how this was Jack’s home before it was ever mine, and how he’d never get to see this skyline again.
That run is seared into my memory. I don’t remember how fast I ran or for how long, all I remember is I ran until I felt ready to stop running. Cycling through all the stages of grief, I cried, I laughed, I smiled, and at times I even felt an odd sense of peace. I felt so connected to him that morning. I was outside doing something, and that’s all he ever wanted for himself and others–to get outside and experience the world. During that run I thought about how much he chose to go after things in life. Instead of talking about what was on his bucket list, he went out and actually did things; he lived like someone who truly understood the value of time. I thought about how I hadn’t been choosing to live, especially in comparison to Jack, who had not just seen Mr. Kilimanjaro, but he’d biked up it. To even consider hiking Kilimanjaro is adventurous, to go out and do it impressive, but to bike it just sounds insane to me. I was running along the Chicago lakefront and thought, quite honestly, that my life was so lame compared to Jack’s. I’m sure that I am not the only friend or relative that had that thought during this time. It’s hard to compare our conventional lives to his which was so unconventional and exciting. While I was enjoying my lakefront run, with the beautiful views and the sense of peace running along the water has always brought me, it wasn’t lost on me that it was my weekly “adventure.” There were so many things that I had said I wanted to see and do, yet they were still just items on a list, unchecked, unseen, not yet done. I hadn’t run a marathon, I hadn’t walked the Camino de Santiago, I hadn’t seen so many countries I had dreamed of, or the Northern Lights. I hadn’t seen the world. As my arms pumped and my legs moved almost in autopilot I thought to myself again, I haven’t even run a marathon, I’ve just talked about doing it. For years it was one of the many things I’d say in conversation, “I’d love to do that one day,” yet one day had not yet come. Suddenly, I remembered that I had even said this to Jack at some point. I felt horrible, realizing that I hadn’t even been able to do this one thing, to run a long race, in all the years that had passed since I had made that remark to him. Meanwhile Jack had spent the last three and a half years on nearly every continent in the world.
I felt incensed with myself. I knew some of my other friends had felt this way too when discussing everything he’d done and seen. I realized then how he had made us all stop and think. He had taught us the lesson that what matters in the end is not leaving things for tomorrow. I was determined not to let this lesson Jack was teaching me go to waste. “I’m running the New York City Marathon” I thought to myself. I may have even said it out loud surrounded by dozens of runners and people out for a stroll nearby. Jack’s death has to mean something to me, to all of us, I kept thinking to myself. I felt like such a fraud to admire how Jack lived a life full of joy in comparison to the rest of us if I wasn’t prepared to address the lack of joy and adventure in mine. I just wanted to make this lesson he was teaching me matter. That’s all I could think the rest of my run and the rest of the day at his memorial service as I heard story upon story of his life and travels, among people admitting they wish they could live more like Jack had. As I cried that day, from the sadness of our collective loss, as well as from laughter of the joyous and hilarious memories of Jack that so many people shared, I knew he had and would continue to change my life. I was prepared to do the work to change it and to live more like him. I wasn’t sure how I’d do it, but as my face flooded with tears I kept thinking to myself, “you’re going to run the marathon, and you’re going to do it for Jack.” I was determined. It felt like something. Though I had no clue at the time, that it was just the beginning.
Emma Judge Lit 
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