Walking Heroes

My Mom and her sister, Aunt Mary Beth, are my heroes. They are both cancer survivors in remission, praise God. About a year ago, last June, they read that if you walked for 30 minutes over the course of the day, you reduce your risk of cancer recurrence. Most people would hear that, sigh, and add it to the bottom of their list of things to accomplish for the day. Not Mom and Aunt Mary Beth. They heard it as a challenge to rise to. Unfortunately, Mary Beth lives in Oklahoma (note – that is NOT the unfortunate bit!) and Mom lives nearly 800 miles away in Ohio, so it would be impossible for them to walk together and hold each other accountable….

Until they had the idea to virtually walk towards each other. Each month, they decided, they would track their miles walked, getting closer and closer to the other, until they met in the middle around St. Louis! Nick made a map for them that he updated each month with the miles walked by each, and the total percentage complete. Here’s their October map, 4 months in:

You’ll notice there are symbols in Springfield, Ohio and Tulsa, Oklahoma to represent our intrepid walkers on the next map, from December. Mom’s is Schuler’s Donuts, the absolute best donuts in the world, and Mary Beth’s is the sign for….er…some historic movie theater that I don’t know. There’s also symbols next to their names: Mom has cowboy boots for her country dancing and Mary Beth has eye glasses for her love of reading.


Finally, finally, finally, after 10 months of solid, hard-core walking, they reached each other! And actually met up in real life, with a long weekend in St. Louis in May (see fireworks below).

The picture below is from a different trip, but it sums up the celebrating that occurred! I am so proud of you both!