Racing Toward Something

In nine days I leave for Greensboro, North Carolina, to compete in US Masters National Championships. Aden will race alongside me while Rob and William compose our cheering section and driving team. From Denver to Greensboro we fly over 1,400 miles and, more problematic, two time zones. Prepping for 6:30 a.m. warmup and an 8:00 a.m. meet start on the East Coast has required rolling my alarm back from 7:00 to 5:30 here in Denver, a shift my body resents with every fiber.

Each morning I drag myself from bed to silence the alarm before it pulls Rob beyond his going-back-to-sleep threshold, trying to convince myself this adjustment matters—that acclimating somewhat to Eastern time before competing will make a difference. After six months of demanding training in the gym and pool, I refuse to let sleep deprivation or jet lag compromise my events on day one.

This morning I sprawled on the TV room floor wrapped in the purple afghan Aden made for me, struggling through PT exercises for hips and back, wondering if more sleep would serve me better than this forced adjustment. Rob thinks rest trumps everything, but I have nightmares of flopping in my 50 fly—first event on the first day—because my creaky joints, foggy brain, and fast-twitch muscles are still sleeping while I'm supposed to be racing.

Here's what I know: with all the weighty troubles splashed across headlines these sunny spring mornings, a swim meet represents nothing more consequential than a family reunion and a chance to test whether short, fast reps and heavier weights have actually made me faster. I'm chasing my fastest Masters times, or at least my fastest in a decade, despite the betrayal of aging. The pursuit feels simultaneously urgent and absurd—serious enough to warrant 5:30 a.m. alarms yet trivial against the backdrop of global crisis.

But perhaps that's the point. We need these pockets of meaning we can control, these small arenas where effort translates to measurable outcome. We need family road trips and the particular nervousness that comes before stepping onto the blocks. We need to care about small things while the world burns, not as escape but as tether—proof that ordinary life persists, that we can still chase personal goals while holding awareness of larger suffering.

At least the early wake-ups gift me extra morning hours for writing, cleaning, PT, and planning—small victories that accumulate like training yards in the pool. And possibly a nap after lunch, which at my age might be the real competitive advantage. In nine days I'll stand behind the blocks in Greensboro, William and Rob somewhere in the stands, Aden in her own race nearby. The alarm will have done its work. The training will speak for itself. And for a few days, we'll inhabit that strange space where something as inconsequential as a swim race feels like the most important thing in the world—because we've decided it matters, and that decision alone is enough.

Eucatastrophe

"Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief." — J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories"

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I'm reading a book called An Academic Affair: A Novel, in which two protagonists hold PhDs in literary studies. One character, Sadie, wrote her dissertation on "eucatastrophe"—a term coined by J.R.R. Tolkien in his essay "On Fairy-Stories." The word, meaning "good catastrophe," stuck to me like a linty sock on a wool sweater, resonating with memories of last week when Rob's sudden heart procedure transformed from horrible stressor to miraculous saving grace.

The book's author, Jodi McAlister, uses a scene from the Anne of Green Gables series to illustrate eucatastrophe, cementing my attraction to both her novel and the concept—I wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on the works of L.M. Montgomery, who created Anne, one of my favorite heroines. The scene McAlister invokes comes from the third book, when Gilbert Blythe lies dying of typhoid fever and Anne realizes, in her terror of losing him, that she loves him. The next morning, a hired hand brings news that Gilbert survived, that his fever broke in the night. In that moment of joyous illumination, Anne experiences her eucatastrophe—the sudden turn from despair to deliverance.

The term calls to me in this moment of wars, escalating conflict, and apocalyptic rhetoric. The world needs a sudden miraculous turn of events that saves our heroes—in this case, all of us—from impending gloom. We need what Tolkien describes as that "piercing glimpse of joy," the shift from despair to victory that arrives when hope seems lost.

At Easter service, Rev. Mark explored John 20:1, which describes Mary Magdalene going to Jesus' tomb "while it was still dark." He selected the word "while" to turn over and examine. While bad things unfold, good is at work, God is at work, he explained. Life doesn't proceed as one concrete event after another—the next phase forms while the previous phase unravels, running concurrent rather than consecutive.

I hold onto this truth: that good things may be unfolding while war crises stutter forward, that the world might yet experience its eucatastrophe. People might yet find joy, breathe deeply, shift focus toward what heals rather than what wounds. Meanwhile, I remain grateful for our moment of miraculous deliverance and try to send its positive energy outward. Sometimes the fever breaks. Sometimes the stent opens the artery. Sometimes the catastrophe becomes good, and the darkness discovers it was never absolute after all. 

Someone Saved My Life Tonight

"And someone saved my life tonight..."

— Lyrics from "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John

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On the morning of my fifty-fifth birthday, I walked through the sliding glass doors of the hospital with my husband. Rob's new cardiologist—an angel in blue scrubs—had found a blockage in one of his arteries and scheduled him for a stent within two business days. The rapidity of the scheduling and the sternness of the cardiologist shook us both as his words sank in: "This should have been addressed ten years ago."

My emotions swung between fury at our previous general practitioner's ineptitude and immense gratitude that this had been caught before a cardiac event. I settled on gratitude—rage required energy that I didn't have. I focused instead on positive outcomes and counted blessings: that Rob hadn't departed for his business trip to India (where an event might have been catastrophic), that we had health insurance through his company, that Rob would soon feel like himself again.

Aden and I proceeded with our State Masters swim meet over the weekend despite our preoccupation with Rob's health. I had relays I couldn't abandon, and Rob came to watch on Saturday so I could achieve the dual objectives of competing and keeping watch over him. By Sunday, though, the stress mounted. Aden and I left the pool early to come home for family dinner, FaceTime with William, and birthday cake—the celebration we planned ahead of the big day.

Walking into the hospital Monday morning felt surreal—plunking down our co-pay, sitting in pre-op for what might prove one of the more impactful events of my life. The waiting, the IV prep, the vitals monitoring all reminded me of William's birth. My labor was induced with William, about ninety minutes of waiting before he arrived precipitously in three pushes. Rob and I had switched roles now, and I kept expecting the nurses to ask me to leave, but they never did.

The procedure lasted maybe fifty minutes. A nurse retrieved me from the waiting room, informed me that everything had gone well with no complications, then took me directly to the surgeon just outside the OR. After the doctor finished dictating his notes, he turned to me: "It was 99.9% blocked—just a thin line of an opening. Fortunately I was able to install the stent and open up the artery, so everything will be fine. But if he had even sneezed wrong..."

I didn't ask him to finish that sentence. Didn't do any research on what-ifs. I was shocked when Rob rolled out cognizant and speaking—he'd been awake for the procedure, had watched the video while the surgeon worked. His color looked good, his reflexes sharp, so different from our poor son after his two lengthy ACL surgeries.

The nurses cared for Rob with practiced efficiency. He ate a meal, dressed himself, left with his arm in a brace by 6:15 p.m. As we walked out those same sliding glass doors almost seven hours later, I couldn't fathom—still can't—the difference that had been made in Rob's life, in all of our lives. Standard operating procedure for the doctors and nurses, perhaps. Life-altering for us.

We are lucky beyond measure. And we've learned two crucial lessons: find a good doctor, and don't ignore chest pains. But there's a third lesson I'm still processing—how quickly everything can change, how thin the line between ordinary Monday and catastrophe. How someone in blue scrubs can save your husband's life on your birthday, giving you a gift no wrapped package could match. The gratitude sits in my chest like its own kind of blockage, one I don't want cleared away. Some weight is worth carrying.