Apparently, I am terrible at following directions.
During the Terry Fox Walk, the path wound through the Logos Land Park – a collection of trailers up in the trees, near the forests and the now-silent waterslides, as well as the nearby river. The walk itself was marked in simple ways; orange ribbons and brightly-coloured spraypaint arrows on the ground.
Neither of which prevented me from wandering around looking down driveways for the path, until an older man pointed out the orange ribbon I had missed at least two times.
At this point, my younger brother, who had arrived early on in the day – first thing, proving he was the early riser of the family, unlike I who probably would have been asleep at 11pm had I not had work to do – passed me for the second time. I should have asked him the route, but I didn’t want to interrupt his engrossing run, and I felt I really just needed to take my time. I’d never been around this part of the park before, having only been to the waterslides as a child.
Organizer Bonnie Helferty rode up to me on a small motorized cart, stopping a few inches from me as I turned a corner, evidently looking as lost as I felt.
“You’re on the right track!” She said, before speeding off past a group of children who asked if they could ride in the cart shortly after.
Onward, I went; I hadn’t been to the park in the last twenty years. Waterslides were not really my favorite thing, nor were pools, and I was never much of a beachgoer or a camper. Moving through beaches marked with signs of ‘No Lifeguard on Duty’, past an ashfilled pit and yet more orange ribbons. River turned to swamp, and I took some pictures of the lone bridge over to the other shore, as well as the distant path. Walkers past me, exchanging banter.
I once again lost the trail. I figured it was not over the bridge, so that left one option; and a familiar ribbon up ahead signaled my destination. I followed along around the edge of the swamp, up into the trees, up to a sign with Terry Fox’s profile on it, and a scribbled ‘Rocky! Careful’ written on it.
It didn’t look too bad. At this point I found myself in a small forest, trees evenly planted and apart. I could see some buckets for some dumping machine in the distance, and more ribbons. Follow on.
It hadn’t rained yet, despite the overcast sky and my lethargic demeanor, though a few droplets rained around me, either from the clouds above or the canopy of the trees. My camera was the only thing I cared about getting wet; the rest of me was easily dried or replaced. And I had the entire path to finish.
I thought about cancer, and Terry Fox – his outline, prosthetic leg stick-like compared to the rest of his body, and his wide frizz of hair in my mind. A young man dead to a bunch of cells that forgot how to do their jobs. Enough to inspire an entire country to get up and walk his distance, to raise awareness for a condition that comes in many forms and to many people, regardless of age. I thought about the sun’s rays and the thinning ozone layer, and how it caused skin cancer; I thought about the changing climate caused by massive coal plants and over-inflated businesses.
Cancer seems like only the first step. So many problems, tied together. Pharmaceutical companies charging hundreds for critical medications that save lives, and research into more ways to counteract cancer and other ailments. A recent pandemic where countries were forced to import medications, with African nations perfectly capable of producing their own vaccines unable to secure authorizations to make the patented concoctions. Anti-vaccination crowds rising along with the cases of measles and polio, of all things.
There’s a lot of steps on this path.
I reach the highway, and start my walk back to the Noah’s Ark of Logos Land’s restaurant, where the Walk organizers have a barbecue. It’s still not raining. I’ve never gotten real answers by thinking, and one reporter with a giant beard who works for a small paper isn’t going to solve issues any more than Fox was. It was about a first step; Terry never finished his run, and each year’s run is about more money, and more funding in a world where nothing gets done without it.
I locked my keys in my car, and had to wait for a family member to bring my spare for about 20 minutes. When I was nearly to Pembroke, on Greenwood Road, it started to pour rain, the dam bursting above me in a proverbial sense.
Apparently, Bonnie told me later she’d gotten soaked.
Maybe if I’d slept in, it would have gotten me.
