Each mile in tribute

So after my big goalsetting post from Sunday, I followed that up with keeping my running shoes in the closet. I had to. The past couple days have been for family, not for self.

HK Grandpa passed away on Sunday after 89 years on this planet. Geography kept us thousands of miles apart, and I wish I could say that shouldn't have mattered since we live in the age of the Internet, telephones, the written word, photographs, all available vehicles to be able to keep in touch. But the truth is that I didn't know him very well. I saw him only a handful of times in my life -- the last time in July 2004 during my trip to Asia. I talked with him just once over the past couple of weeks, when he was released from the hospital for the second or third time in as many months. I somehow dug deep enough, strung together enough Chinese words to ask him to get well, be well, and to have tea with my mother. I'm ashamed that my conversational Cantonese isn't good enough to have been able to better communicate when there were opportunities for exchanges. He had a strange sense of humor, and I remember his toothless smile, but it seemed he would never smile in a photograph. I guess he might have been embarrassed about his teeth.

I thought about him a lot during my run today. I tried to remember him best I could, but some of the memories are fuzzy...perhaps not exactly accurate, maybe embellished, but mostly very real. I thought about the time he took me to the market and we bought a live chicken, which would later be a featured dish at dinner. I thought about how he liked to go to the local dim sum shop, order a bamboo steamer of BBQ pork buns and something else, and read the paper for hours. I thought about the times when we'd go to the courtyard by his apartment and he'd tell all his friends that were playing Chinese chess that his grandkids from Canada were visiting. I thought about the welcome dinner in 2004 when I stayed with him during my visit. He ordered some kind of baby bird -- it might have been duck I don't quite remember -- just for me. And I ate it on top of the ridiculously large, but very yummy, seafood feast. I thought about how I wish I could go to his funeral, pay my respects, but it's next to impossible right now. Even my mom can't, but she was just there. I'm so glad, relieved even, that she got to spend time with her father because she hadn't much since she moved to Canada some 30 years ago, leaving her whole family behind.

I ran 8 miles today, each mile in tribute for each decade of his life. I should have ran closer to 9 then -- I wanted to -- but I ran out of time, and was actually just scheduled for 7. Anyways, I don't know what it was but I was in some kind of zone during my 90 minute outing. I didn't adhere to my regular 10/1 ratio of minutes of running/walking. I ran straight through most of it, feeling stronger by the step. No gels. No water. Barely looked at Garmin, and my iPod was off for 85 percent of the run. It was just me and HK Grandpa today.