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Born To Run
Whit Honea, Los Angeles, CA
From Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission. By Hogan Hilling and Al Watts.
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We can run from dangers and to flights of fancy. We can run like a river between the canyons built tall around us. We can run away, and strong upon our course.
The younger one had always fallen to sport whenever the opportunity presented itself, which was far too seldom for his liking, dependent as it was upon my wallet and small hours salvaged from long, busy days.
The older did not care for games that demanded hits and throws or the trappings of competition. He had no desire to test his merit against the might of others. He preferred actions of the mind, sprawled across screens like so many battlefields. The only score he cared to best was the one he had set before it.
That is not to say that the latter did not take the time to kick a ball on occasion, and there were moments where he could understand the enjoyment in others, but as a rule, the games did nothing for him.
Also true was that the former did develop a taste for the couch and the glossy-eyed dance between brain and thumb. He grew content there, in the shelter of his brother, and many days they would play until my wife or I bid them not to. It became clear the two boys would happily wile away their lives controlling puppets in the living room, the digital following of quick-handed orders until the only memories they carried were red eyes and calluses.
And so we took to running.
It started over a year ago when the older boy brought home demons in need of exorcise and I in need of a homophone. So we ran around the block, through streets and parks, up hills and down again, until all that was left were clear heads and hands on our hips.
We continued this, whenever either of us was in need with a pace set by conversation and the strength of his legs slowly matching the steel of his will. It soon became evident he had found his stride just as it was clearer still that I began to lose mine. He grew stronger, faster, and I grew weaker and frailer.
When the opportunity arose for him to join a club at school he took it. All I could do was drive him there to run laps around the campus while I sat at the stoplight on the corner, willing it to change.
It was the first time he had ever wanted to join anything on his own, not knowing a single student on the squad, and never bothering to take the time to learn the names of most of them. He was there to run, so that is what he did.
His younger brother found it akin to inspiration and wished to run a race as well. My wife, no stranger to long runs, agreed this was a thing to do together — a perfect team of individuals bound by blood and entrance fees.
It used to be that the skip in my stride was measured only by the pound of heartbeats and the growth of shadows flying straight from the sun. Then my legs lost their lean. I found myself hitting walls and leaving marks upon them like a well-fed Kilroy, brick by brick, and I felt them all come morning.
Those were the years where weight no longer waited, and my silhouette grew to block more from the scene, and all you could do was dare to peer around me.
When the boys were born, it became suddenly obvious, as important things tend to do, that I had let myself go, inch by inch — my breaths grew labored, my steps less fleet, and the only thing heavier than my excuses were the folds of my lap that turned to soft hills.
The kids were active, and I had talked the talk as I walked beside them, encouraging them to take another lap while I stood in the grass and thought about it. The yard grew thick around my ankles, like a tree and throwing shade as I rooted.
And so we took to running.
It did not come easy. My body did what it could, and I crossed the finish line well behind my family, although none of us crossed together. The youngest ran three miles without ever looking back, and the oldest, not even twelve hours past a previous race through dirt-piled hills, finished somewhere behind him, torn, as he was, between nursing my pangs and finding his brother. My wife kept steady and provided words of encouragement every time she passed me.
We were tired legs and laughter.
There is no need to be lost in order to find yourself amid a throng of strangers, to trim the ivy from the walls we are afraid to hit. It is as if they are able to see what you cannot, the will that we bury between the rocks of homework and the hard place of deadlines — it connects us — and in each of us is the way of the other. We are all different, and we are all the same; we are running, and it moves us.
Then there is the finish line, and it feels so much more like starting.
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Whit Honea is the author of The Parents’ Phrase Book and co-founder of Dads4Change.com. His writing can be found all over the Internet including his site at whithonea.com. He lives in Los Angeles with his wonderful wife, two great boys, and way too many pets.
Hogan Hilling is a nationally recognized and OPRAH approved author of 12 published books. Hilling has appeared on Oprah. He is the creator of the DADLY book series and the “#WeLoveDads” and “#WeLoveMoms” Campaigns, which he will launch in early 2018. He is also the owner of Dad Marketing, a first of its kind consultation firm on how to market to dads. He is also the founder of United We Parent. Hilling is also the author of the DADLY book series and first of its kind books. The first book is about marketing to dads “DADLY Dollar$” and two coffee table books that feature dads and moms. “DADLY Dads: Parents of the 21st Century” and “Amazing Moms: Parents of the 21st Century.” Hilling is the father of three children and lives in southern California.
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Originally published in Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
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