Today I will join a friend in swimming 11 miles in open water, hugging the coast of my next-door neighbor island. My friend and fellow swimmer created the Swim of Hope as an act of love and support for a fellow swimmer, who is living with pancreatic cancer.
I am swimming for my friend Keith and to raise funds for his chosen charity, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. I am also swimming to honor my father, who died in August 2020, and my sister, who died in January 2021, both succumbing to pancreatic cancer.
I have never swum 11 miles. I have no history of competitive swimming, though I love to swim. I am slower than my friend.
I began this journey by supporting my friend in her training. As we added some distance to some of our swims, the thought dawned on me that I could do the swim.
So I said it out loud one day: I’ll do it. I’ll do the swim with you. Once I say something out loud, once I announce it, it begins; it becomes real. And no matter how daunting, it becomes doable–in my mind’s eye.
I’d never jumped out of a plane until I decided to do it in college–and then paused as I looked out the small window at 1,000 feet on our way to 3,000 feet. What was I thinking? I thought as the plane climbed higher. When the instructor opened the door, I hesitated. Truly, what was I thinking? Then I did my first static-line jump.
I had never run a marathon until I announced I would run the Paris Marathon when I was a university student in Poitiers, France. I didn’t train or hydrate enough. It wasn’t a pretty finish, though I finished. And when I ran another marathon in Alaska a decade later, I fared much better.
I had never covered a war until I got on a plane in Cairo and disembarked in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, then crossed into Liberia to document the civil war unfolding there. When the bullets started pinging past my head, I once again wondered what I’d been thinking, choosing to cover armed conflict. I learned quickly and got lucky a number of times. The suffering, death and destruction I witnessed changed the path of my career for a decade.
A few weeks ago, a fellow swimmer suggested I might want to think of a shorter swim, maybe simply swim out to meet my other Swim of Hope participant. Huh? I’m doing the 11 miles, I replied. I had to say it, my friend replied.
Yep, and I said I’d do it, I thought to myself.
The engine on the boat that was intended to act as my support vessel failed, and I scrambled to find a solution. My friends suggested kayakers, and two friends volunteered.
The T-shirts I’d ordered in deep purple with Team Hatch Swim of Hope arrived with the name of my fellow swimmer. No Team Hatch.
For a few days, I was sad and my hope deflated. It seemed that messages were encouraging me to bail on the swim. There are other ways to contribute, Cheryl.
This time I don’t have to wonder what I’m thinking. I’ll be thinking about my friend Keith, who has vowed to live to see his son graduate from college in 2023. He is a man who exudes remarkable joy and resilience, grounded in his deep Catholic faith.
And I’ll think about my father and my sister, who both died, barely four months apart, in the middle of the pandemic.
I’m a scuba diver. As a diver, I learned early that I need to surface slowly to allow all the nitrogen that has entered my body under pressure to release slowly as I leave the depths and travel back to the surface.
I will be thinking of my father and my sister. I am hoping that I may release some of the pain, sadness and grief that has accumulated in my body during the sustained pressure of these past 17 months.
I’ve been hydrating since yesterday. I just painted my toenails a deep purple. Yesterday I painted my mother’s toenails a deep purple. Not her preferred color, but it’s for a great cause, supporting her remaining living daughter and raising funds for research for pancreatic cancer.
If you’d like to learn more about the swim and Pancreatic Cancer Action Network and/or donate, please click here
https://secure.pancan.org/site/TR/DIY/DIYTeamraisers?px=3166837&pg=personal&fr_id=2262
Thank you.
