A poignant moment came yesterday as I was greeting finishing marathoners at the Flying Monkey Marathon. A runner named Graham Gallemore, who is sixty-nine, crossed the finish line.
He pointed at a tin campaign-button-type pin he was wearing on the front of his tee. He’d had it made. It showed a picture of Angela Ivory.
“She still pulls me through,” he said.
The last time I saw Graham was on June 9th in Memphis at Angela’s funeral. The last time prior, I’d seen Graham was at the 2010 Flying Monkey, which I had run myself. I had come upon Graham. Angela was accompanying him a ways during his run. Pulling him through. I stopped briefly that day, and she hugged me. Pulling me through, too.
When I tell people about Angela Ivory, I say she ran a marathon in every state. Then she ran a marathon in every state again. Then she ran a ultramarathon in every state (She maybe lacked six or seven finishing this last goal). And as amazing as that may seem, it’s not even her story. that’s not her story at all.
She did that while fighting cancer.
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