3 days, 60 miles. Alone or with a group. I want to walk.
My neighbor, my mother's close friend, one of the most amazing women I've ever known, died when I was 14 of breast cancer. She was one of those people who brought that breath of fresh air into the room. Her smile alerted the world that trouble would not rest at her feet. She put others first, always, and right to the end. She was simply inspiring.
In small towns, when someone who changed the place for the better passed on, memorials, scholarship funds and the like, are created in their honor. I was lucky enough to receive the Becky Childress Memorial Scholarship my senior year of high school. I've always said if I'm lucky I'll be half the woman she was. Her memory is still so vivid in my mind's eye. Laughing. She was always laughing. I feel as if walking is just this tiny step I can take to say thank you... to pay it forward. Because I believe in things like that. Paying it forward. I truly believe what you put out there in this world comes back to you.
Becky put so much out there and I want to walk in her memory, to honor her gifts and talents that she left with us. To remind myself that goodness and kindness and beauty lives through everything... that it just keeps walking.
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