Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Terry Fox

Got our amazon order through yesterday, including the amazing book about Terry Fox called 'Terry'. This is a Canadian lad who died over 25 years ago!! Aged 18 he lost a leg to cancer, then later in life decided he'd run across Canada (with one leg remember!) on his 'marathon of hope' raising money for cancer research. After 143 days and over 3000 miles (with a couple of thousand left) his cancer returned and stopped his run - he died less than a year later aged 22. His legacy remains rooted in everyone & everything here in Canada. Ever since we came into Canada last summer his story is heard everywhere - roads, mountains, parks & schools are named after him. Last year a special edition dollar coin was minted with him on it (the first canadian coin ever struck showing a person other than the king or queen!) Terry Fox is everywhere! We ran in the annual 'Terry Fox run' last Sept in Banff and incidentally met his brother in the foundation HQ just 5 miles up the road from where we've camped out this winter. His story has moved both of us soooo much and the book is just so sad - I can only read a few pages at a time coz I just start blubbing!! It also makes us think hard about 'the meaning of life' without being too profound about it!! (check out more about this amazing guy at www.terryfoxrun.org)

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