The Running Man

Seize the day! A modern-day love story . . .

On Monday morning, I was working at home, and my husband and I were discussing our plans for the day. I needed to run into work for a late-afternoon meeting, and we decided my husband would drive me in, drop me off, run some errands, pick up a pair of subs at Bonfatto's for our supper (including a delectable tuna sub for me!), and then pick me up after my meeting was done.

In the midst of all of this, my husband casually mentioned that the weather for Tuesday was to be quite nice, and so he was thinking he might drive down to Shawnee State Park on Tuesday to run the lake shore trail.

Well, this caught my attention. Shawnee State Park is a lovely little park just west of Bedford, with several nice hiking trails and a 451-acre lake. So I began investigating my work commitments for Tuesday. At the very end of the day on Monday, the one meeting I had for Tuesday was cancelled. And so I scheduled a last-minute vacation day and joined him. "Seize the day!"  I thought to myself.

Tuesday morning, we got up and packed ourselves and our stuff into the car and made the hour-plus drive to Shawnee. The sky was dramatic, with big layers of clouds clearing and separating as we drove. Waves on the ocean. Sand on the beach. Fish bones. That kind of sky.

We got there and parked the car, and while my husband stretched out to go jogging, I grabbed my camera and headed down to the lake, where I began to hike the approximately 3.4-mile lake shore trail.

The lake shore trail, I would categorize as a relatively easy, flat hike (except for a few long hills). It winds along the lake, across the dam breast, over two bridges, along a swimming area, and through the woods. I didn't get very far before my husband caught up to me and then passed me, doing his best Rocky impersonation as he climbed the trail onto the dam breast and ran right on by.

I kept hiking, moving at a good pace but stopping to take many pictures. Shawnee State Park is somewhat south of where we live, so we anticipated we might find the autumn foliage colors there even better than the ones that remain in our area.

What we found was that there were about a half-dozen pretty exceptional looking trees near the swimming beach area. I could see their colors practically shining out from just about anywhere on the lake. Besides those, the colors there are pretty much done.

I got to a good vantage point and starting taking pictures across the lake at the half-dozen trees that were still dressed in their best fall colors. I was using different settings, zooming in, zooming out, trying a couple of different angles, framing it this way and that. When a running man entered the frame of my picture.

And I suddenly smiled when I realized that - hey, I know that man! It was my husband, jogging between the lake and the last few beautiful trees. I have to admit the word "idyllic" came to mind as I contemplated the scene. I snapped a few frames that included him and the trees, and I thought about what a beautiful day it was, and how fortunate we were to be able to be out in it. I felt doubly grateful because the day was a gift I had not expected to have.

My husband shortly disappeared out of sight, and I continued my walk, stepping up my pace as I realized how far behind I'd gotten. I admit it: take me anywhere pretty, and I will lollygag and probably drive you crazy, taking too many pictures.

I crossed the two bridges, walked through the flaming trees, watched a flock of Canada geese down by the lake playing along the edge. And as I rounded the final corner, I heard a shout and looked up to see my husband, shouting my name and waving his arms from atop a picnic table just across the way.

And shortly after that, I was through the trees and in the picnic area and at the table with him, finally sitting down and enjoying hot coffee and yogurt and cheddar cheese in the sun. What a lovely way to end a hike. In the end, it had taken him just under 40 minutes to jog the trail; it took me about an hour and 40 minutes to walk it, stopping often to take pictures.

Except that we weren't quite done. We sat a while and caught our breath, enjoyed our snacks, took some of our stuff back to the car, grabbed our chairs and our daysacks, and hiked over to the dam breast and along the spillway below. And that is where we sat, enjoying the late-afternoon sunshine before hiking back to the car (by the afternoon's end, it was about a 6-mile day for each of us) and heading for home.

I will tell you just one more story before I conclude this posting, to help explain why I chose this photo for this day, of the almost 500 pictures I took around the lake. I had promised once before that someday I would tell the story of my wedding day. There is a longer version of this tale that may someday make these pages, but for now, here's the short version, just for the sake of context.

My husband and I got married 5 years ago, after dating for 22 years. We hadn't really had plans for marriage, though we'd kicked the idea around from time to time, but maintained separate households all those years.

In October of 2008, the man I loved got very sick, and it looked like he might be dying. He had no health insurance, and I married him to give him mine so that we could seek the medical treatment he needed to save his life. He was in three different hospitals the week we got married, concluding with an ambulance ride to Hershey Medical Center on our wedding day, October 17, 2008.

As I sat crying and alone in the hospital lobby on the night of our wedding, I prayed to God to spare my husband's life. And I promised God that if He would just let my husband live, I would spend the rest of my life doing my best to live each day in a state of gratitude.

What happened next? Well, my husband recovered in a manner that can only be described as nothing short of miraculous, I drove down to Hershey and brought him home about a week later, he moved in shortly afterward and gave up his bachelor apartment, and we began the business of living out our happily ever after together.

My advice to you, my friends, is to keep the promises you make, as best you can. And you might be especially careful to keep the ones you make to God. And I will too. Oh, and whatever else you do, seize the day, for none of us know how many of those we have left.

And now you see the reasons, beyond the obvious, for the smile in my heart when I captured this moment, which features some of my very favorite things in life: my husband, well and healthy, and enjoying an autumn run amid the beautiful fall foliage, on a day we never expected to get to spend together.

And me? Yes, picture me happy. No, more than that: picture me grateful, with a full and overflowing heart, living out each day in a state of grace, and taking none of these moments for granted.

The soundtrack is an 80s favorite: Mike and the Mechanics, with Silent Running.