#34 Thunder Bay, ON: The Terry of Many Miracles

Yesterday we took a long walk from our campground to pay homage to another Terry from Transcona, Winnipeg.  Maybe we should have driven, but that didn't feel right.  We have been driving west now, from St. John's Newfoundland, for what has felt like a very long time. This is a very big country.  But we've been driving.    I can't even imagine running it.  On only one good leg.  The Terry Fox monument that we were walking to was located as far west as he had made it from St. John's before his cancer flared up again and ended the Marathon of Hope.

The day before he had to quit, Terry would have run past the small town of Pearl.  On the other side of the Trans-Canada from Pearl is a large amethyst deposit.  Before Patty and I arrived at our campground we took a little prospecting venture to the Blue Points Amethyst Mine.  I envisioned finding one of those huge geodes with lustrous purple crystals like you see for sale at a gem shop.  What we did find was quite different.  Still purple.  Still beautiful.  Just a lot smaller.


On our hike to the Terry Fox monument, I brought a nice chunk of amethyst with me.  I knew I wanted to use it as a tribute, but wasn't quite sure how.  It was still in my pocket when I was reading the plaques beside the statue.  I was quite moved by reading what motivated Terry Fox: Dreams are made if people only try.  I believe in miracles.  I have to.  Because somewhere the hurting must stop.  I wondered if Terry pictured the cancer cure, for which he was raising money, to be one amazing silver bullet.  One huge amethyst geode.  That hasn't happened yet.  But through the money raised by Terry and the runners that have followed him, many small miracles have been enabled.  Many tiny purple crystals.  As I was thinking about these things, I glanced down at the base of the statue.  It was composed entirely of chunks of amethyst.  Fitting.


Like Terry Fox, my sister Beth died of cancer.  But the years and months before she passed were a whole lot longer and brighter because of a series of small miracles.  Many of those miracles were funded through money raised by a very courageous 23-year-old running across a very big country on one leg.  To express my gratitude, I left my piece of amethyst on a large rock near the statue, right beside a flock of rubber ducks.  Looks like there had been many grateful visitors at the monument ahead of me.




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