Terry Fox by Leslie Scrivener

Author:Leslie Scrivener [Scrivener, Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55199-586-1
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2000-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

“TODAY WAS A DIFFICULT DAY”

The bleeding-stump episode marked another change for the participants in the Marathon of Hope. Once, shortly afterwards, Doug remembered, Terry, hurting and proud, climbed into the van and said, “Get out. I want to cry alone.” Something was different.

Doug was puzzled. Was the stump bothering Terry more than he would say? Darrell, who was perhaps more intuitive, sensed that something was wrong. He watched Terry as he ran, and felt each step took too much effort. He seemed to have lost the ease and comfort that had marked his stride in New Brunswick and Quebec. Darrell knew Terry had a bad temper, but felt this new attitude was different. He knew his brother was self-willed and stubborn, but he was not irritable by nature.

Darrell kept looking for reasons to explain the change. Was it the heat? Was it the hills of northern Ontario? Was it the lack of sleep? Day after day, Terry recorded in his diary that he was waking up exhausted. Doug and Darrell withdrew from Terry just a step. They would be there when he called them, but it seemed that those days he needed to be alone.

Terry had by now left the crowds behind. His path along Highway 69 took him along the wild eastern shore of Georgian Bay.

There were good times, too; there always were with Terry. In Parry Sound he met Bobby Orr’s father, Doug, who presented Terry with “the greatest gift I’ve ever been given,” Bobby’s Canada Cup sweater and a large photo of the hockey legend flying through the air after scoring an overtime goal to win the 1970 Stanley Cup. Terry felt he was in heaven.

Jack Lambert, the paternal Cancer Society district director who accompanied Terry through central Ontario, left the run south of Sudbury. With his round belly and Bermuda shorts, Lambert had become a familiar figure on the highway. He had driven hundreds of miles behind Terry at a speed of one or two miles an hour, his right hand on the wheel, his left hand stretched out the window to receive donations from passersby. His job had been to arrange for local receptions, to make sure volunteers were stirring up enthusiasm, and, most of all, to make sure that Terry was happy.

Doug saw Lambert as “a man with a heart who backed Terry all the way.” Terry responded to that loyalty, and the day Lambert left was a sad one. “I’ll miss him,” Terry told his diary. “He was great!”

On August 4 Terry learned that the van’s odometer had been measuring his miles incorrectly and that he had already passed the halfway mark. The 4-per-cent error in the odometer reading allowed them to add an extra sixty-five miles to his total. But Terry refused to regard the blunder as a boon. His pattern of goal-setting – he had been running towards the halfway mark for days – was upset. The psychological spark he would receive by crossing the midpoint had been snatched away from him.

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