At the edge of my bed I sat. And sat. I do not remember for how long I remained there looking at the fireplace. I do remember feeling uncertain and unsure. I sat there because I did not know what else to do. I had followed my brother’s lead – at least in part.

At the edge of my bed I sat wondering what I was supposed to do now that my mother had told Tom and me, “Your Dad died this morning.”

There was no protocol. Heck, having just had my 7th birthday, I had no idea what protocol meant, much less what was expected of me. Upon hearing her words, my brother screamed, headed up the back stairs and in typical Hickey fashion slammed the door at the top of the stairs before slamming the door into his room.

I left the breakfast table shortly thereafter and followed him upstairs. If I felt anger, I too would have slammed doors. If I felt pain, I would have cried. But what I felt was uncertainty. And loss. Not the loss of my father, but the loss of my way.

I heard my mom’s words, but I did not understand them. I saw the pain on her face and in the eyes of my grandmother, who had spent the previous week with us. She and my mom and virtually everyone else in the family knew Dad was dying. Even Tom knew his father was losing his battle with cancer.

I did not know. I knew he was sick. Not because I was bright enough to recognize that terminal cancer was a death sentence. I knew because of the hospital bed that had been moved into my parent’s room. I knew because of the presence of Bill, the hospice care nurse. And I knew because there are some things even a six-year old can sense.

There is no protocol for coping with death. There are no rules, and there certainly is no rhyme, nor reason. Death is an ending, it is final and it is a moment in time.

Living, on the other hand, is a series of beginnings. It is constant moving and learning. What I have learned over the course of running 16 marathons is the importance of living. The importance of taking a chance. The importance of learning from the past, even if the beneficiary is someone else. So, I will continue to run for the child who is sitting at the edge of their bed trying to find their way forward.