On Saturday, May 9, 2009, we participated in the Race for The Cure in Salt Lake. Members of our family have been doing the race for the past nine years to honor our mom, Becky Callister, who died of breast cancer on November 24, 1987. It’s always the day before Mothers’ Day, and it’s become a special tradition for us to do this every May.
When we first started, just my sister Tami and I did the race. The race was up on Capitol Hill that year, around Memory Grove, and it was really gorgeous . The Salt Lake City Hoop -it -Up basketball tournament was always on the same weekend as the race, so we’d do the race then watch Kurt play basketball.
Eventually our daughters started doing the race with us, and we either walked or ran the 5K, depending on what kind of shape we were in that year. The year Ashli had rheumatic fever, we all took turns pushing her in her wheelchair, in a pouring rainstorm.
And slowly over the years, the rest of our families have started joining us, until this year we had 19 family members and 2 friends on our team “Becky’s Bunch”.
I try so hard to not get emotional about my Mom. She’s been gone almost 22 years and I’ve lived longer without her now than I did with her. But she never leaves me. I wish my younger brothers and sisters had known her better. I can’t even imagine how it must be for Tawni to not have known her much at all in the short nine years she had her. My Mom was there for my baptism, my first high school volleyball game, my last high school volleyball game, every Prom I went to, moving into my dorm at college, just everything. And my little sisters Tara and Tawni had none of that with her.
Yet, in spite of the fact that they basically grew up without a Mom, they are the most amazing Moms themselves! I am so proud of my brothers and sisters and the lives they lead. As we all got together last weekend and as I looked at the pictures afterward, I was struck by the thought that my Mom would be so proud of us all. We’re all so completely different from each other yet somehow over the years we’ve all managed to mesh our lives and become a strong team, there for each other. When somebody needs money, we manage to scrape up a few hundred dollars and help each other through a rough Christmas or pay a couple bills, or yes, even post bail once in a while;)
They roll their eyes and accept the fact that I pretend to be a good Mormon even though they all know I stop at Wal-Mart on my way out there for Sunday dutch ovens or barbecues. I roll my eyes and ask them to smoke on my back porch instead of my front porch, but the truth is, the older we get, our differences matter a lot less.
WOW! JADE AND HER DAD STAND EXACTLY THE SAME WAY!
..and then there's Ted....
What matters now is that we’re living past the age of 39, and every single day one of us outlives our Mom, it’s a bonus. A whole new chance to spend time with the people we love. I think somewhere in the back of our minds, we all kind of thought life ends at 39. And it’s so great to discover that it’s only just beginning- with weddings and grandkids and so much more in our futures, we have a lot ahead of us. Now if we could just get Hig to join us once in a while, life would be complete.
