THE MARATHON OF HOPE

 

THE MARATHON OF HOPE

Terry Fox was born in 1958 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. When he was ten years old the family moved to Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. There, Terry grew up with his brothers, Fred and Darrell and his sister, Judith. They were a close, loving family.

Terry thought of himself as an average guy. Yes, he was average in every way but one. Terry loved a challenge. Once he started something, he simply would not give up until he had seen it through.

 Terry set himself many challenges as he was growing up. Basketball was one of them. Terry was small for his age, but he was determined to make it to the school team.

One day Terry and his friend, Doug Alward, were having a chat after school. Terry suddenly jumped up.

‘Come on, Doug,’ he said. ‘Enough of this sitting around. Let’s go practice some basketball shots before dinner.’

‘By the way,’ Doug asked as they played, ‘What did the coach say when you went for the tryouts today?’

‘Ah, nothing much,’ mumbled Terry.

‘You seemed pretty upset after school. He must have said something,’ said Doug. Terry sighed. ‘Coach said I am too short for basketball. He thinks I’d be better off wrestling.’

What the coach didn’t know was that telling Terry he couldn’t do something was just the kind of challenge that would make him go out and find the way to do it.

Terry worked harder than ever at his basketball. He practiced with Doug, and he even took up cross-country running.

‘I hate running,’ he confided to Doug.’ But the coach said it would toughen me up.’

To the coach’s surprise, Terry improved enough to make it to the team. He was the last player chosen, and he didn’t play much in games at first, but he kept on improving.

He finished school with a very good sports career and entered Simon Fraser University. There too he made it for the basketball team.

But before he finished his first year at University, something very sad happened. A pain in his right knee had been bothering Terry for weeks. He had ignored it, determined to finish the basketball season. Now, suddenly, it was so bad that he couldn’t stand up.

Terry’s parents took him to the hospital. Tests showed that Terry had cancer. He was going to lose his leg. When the doctor told him, he cried.

‘But I can’t lose my leg,’ he protested. ‘I’m an athlete!’

‘I understand how you feel,’ replied the doctor.

‘Nobody can understand how I feel,’ Terry said quietly.

This was surely the greatest challenge Terry had ever faced in his life.

And Terry did face the challenge, with spirit and determination as always. Barely six weeks later, Terry was walking around with an artificial leg and a cane in his hand.

In the days that followed Terry realized that he wasn’t feeling too bad but others were. Instead of cheering him he found that he had to cheer up people. Even his coach who came to see him seemed to feel bad!

His coach had brought for him a magazine article. It was about Dick Traum who also had an artificial leg and ran in the New York marathon.’

‘I have a dream, a challenge for myself. I am going to run across the whole of Canada, from sea to sea. It will be my Marathon of Hope, and all the money I raise will go for cancer research.’

Terry began to prepare for his marathon. He started by running short distances but within a month he was able to run a mile

To test himself Terry entered the Prince George marathon. He intended to run only half the distance but his friend Doug kept saying, ‘Come on, Terry. You can finish.’ Terry did reach the finish line.

After running 3,000 miles in training, Terry boarded a plane for Newfoundland on Canada’s east Coast. He was ready, to take the challenge of a 5,300 mile run across Canada. On April 12^th 1980, the day Terry started the run, his family and many others watched him on television in the morning news. He told reporters that his challenge was to raise a million dollars for cancer research. He hoped to run 30 to 40 miles a day and be home at Port Coquitlam in six months time.

In St. John’s Newfoundland, Doug was there with Terry. Doug was driving a van donated by Ford Motor Company; they used petrol donated by Imperial Oil. Many other big companies also helped in many ways.

As he ran across towns, people cheered him. They even invited him for meals. In the first town he ran through, donations poured in. but it wasn’t roses all the way. In some towns there would be no one waiting. And that meant no money for cancer research. Sometimes he felt dizzy but he would rest for a while, do fifteen pushups and start running again.

Terry made steady progress running on Prince Edward Island and then across New Brunswick. The donations kept coming and Terry pounded out the miles no matter how tired he got.

In Montreal, four wheelchair athletes and a football star, Don Sweet, accompanied Terry through the streets to a reception at the City Hall.

At Hawkesbury, the first town inside the Ontario border, Terry was welcomed with cheers, balloons and a brass band. He even got a police escort with lights flashing.

Two young bicyclists, Jim Brown and Garth Walker rode 300 miles from Toronto to Ottawa to hand over to Terry more than $ 50,000 in cash. In Ottawa, Terry met the Governor General of Canada, Edward Schreyer. He wore his same old grey flannel shorts and his Marathon of Hope TShirt. He wore these very clothes when he met Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, too.

Terry had wonderful support from Canadians of all walks of life. School children donated money saved from their pocket money. Bus drivers stopped their buses when they saw him. They collected money from the passengers to add to Terry’s collection.

The Radio Stations and T.V. networks were now covering Terry almost all the time. He had become a celebrity and wherever he went, people mobbed him. They wanted to touch him, shake his hand, get his autograph.

As he ran, a wonderful surprise awaited him. Just outside the city of Toronto, he saw his family standing at the roadside. One of the city newspapers had flown them in for a reunion with him. For a few minutes they were hugging and crying and laughing and asking questions. But Terry soon remembered his challenge and set off again with spirits high, his tiredness lifted as if by magic.

The city of Toronto welcomed him with cheering crowds. They stood on a platform in front of the Toronto city hall where thousands had gathered to hear him. At Toronto the volunteers had a busy time dashing back and forth between the crowd and the cars that stopped to contribute.

The crowd and the fund raising continued as Terry ran through the heavily populated centres of Southern Ontario.

Each day’s run became a parade of kids, adults, police escorts, film crews, honking cars and dozens of volunteers dodging around collecting donations. Terry inspired many. At one place, prisoners washed cars and collected $900 for the Marathon of Hope. Another man covered eleven and half miles on his hands and knees and raised $5000.

Just as he was about to reach Thunder Bay, Ontario, Terry felt a sharp pain in his chest. He did not want to disappoint the crowds waiting for him so he kept running but the pain wouldn’t go. Terry went into the van and told Doug to take him to the hospital. This time the cancer was in his lungs.

Terry had to discontinue but the campaign to raise funds went on. Famous stars like John Denver, Annie Murrey, Elton John and many other sang for him and raised $ 10.5 million.

Terry became the youngest Canadian ever to receive Canada’s highest civilian award, the Companion of the Order of Canada. He received many other awards including one from the American Cancer Society. A stamp was issued honouring his achievement. September 13^th is designated Terry Fox Marathon of Hope Day. Thousands of letters poured in to Terry including one from the President of America, Jimmy Carter and Pope John Paul II.

Terry died on Sunday, June 1981. But today he remains a symbol of hope and courage to millions throughout the world.

For Solved Exercises of this lesson, click on the link below:

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