Update: It has been driving me crazy that there are a couple inaccuracies in this post that I need to correct. While the intersection at Copper Hill and Copperstone is and will always be a crucial part of our lives, it is not technically the place where Dylan was last alive. It is the last place that he was as we have known him. I should have been more careful in my statements, because I am grateful to all of the people that were there for Dylan. Including all of the emergency workers that were able to keep him alive long enough, so that I could be there for Donna and Marisa when Dylan did eventually slip away from us. I have put the words “breathing” and “alive” in quotes, because I have been unable to come up with a more appropriate way of conveying my point.

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After a disappointing result in last years Santa Clarita 5k, I determined that I was going to do the half marathon if it meant that I had to crawl across the finish line. I figured I would run as far as I could, and then walk the rest. Then, my life changed.

After we planted the tree in Heritage Park, it became my objective to get there once a week as part of my workout. Perhaps, it was my attempt at mourning, but it became much more. I started doing this on March 16th. I would run 5 minutes, then walk 5 minutes over and over until I got there. Then, I would return using the same routine. It had nothing to do with the goal of running 13 miles. It had to do with dealing with loss and mourning, I think. Something happened along the way, and I pushed myself a little more to get to the park. Then, I only walked one time for five minutes, before getting to the park.

After that, I ran the nearly four miles from the spot where Dylan was last “breathing” to the tree in Heritage Park we planted in our own little private memorial. I listened to songs — so many songs, I got emotional. I cried a few times as I approached either of the two endpoints of my path. I got angry. Really angry. I thought a lot about Dylan.

One Augustines lyric that stuck out many of those times, so fittingly described what all of us felt early in our mourning:

YOU FEEL SEE THROUGH
LIKE EVERYONE SEES YOUR HEART
IS BLOWN APART, THAT IT’S CRIPPLED
AND CRACKED AND HAD ENOUGH..

I must have listened to that a hundred times while I was huffing and puffing my way though another mile.

I would mention the marathon, yet avoid committing to it. I didn’t really feel up to it. I couldn’t get over the mental hurdle. Personal achievement was of no interest. Nothing really changed as far as my routine, until, as uncertain as ever, I registered for the half marathon on September 16th.

On Sunday September 21, I ran for a little over 5 miles. It was the first time, I had run along a stretch of road I mentioned in another post (Panic At The Disco). It struck me. I wanted my next goal to be to make it back to Heritage Park. I had no idea how far it was. I just knew it was my next goal. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was probably when my thoughts of Dylan and landmarks of his life in our neighborhood became an inspiration instead of a memorial. It took me two or three weeks to get back to Heritage Park only to realize how much further I would have to go to get to the finish line in November.

I knew that the goal that would put me over top would be making it all the way back to the intersection of Copper Hill and Copperstone. The place where Dylan was last “alive.”

It took me another three weeks to reach that goal, but I did. The next weekend, I ran past that crucial intersection, and found myself lost. I had no idea what to do to get the last two miles in to reach 13.1. I basically ran around the block and realized that the hill was too steep for me to do that twice in end of the longest run of my life, so I just started running back down hill thinking of the pain in my legs. Not recognizing how the pain of what had happened to Dylan had caused me to pursue an objective that would cause me so much pain then. I did it, and I stopped RunKeeper on exactly 13.10. And then faced myself with the journey of hiking up the high hill I just ran down on wobbly weak legs to get myself home.

The following week I thought about a lot of things, but I really thought about some way to pay tribute to Dylan while I was running. A number of ideas passed through my head. One phrase was consistent: “I’m Thinking of Dylan Zimmerman.” The key word in the Augustines lyric is “feel.” I have felt “see through” during these last few months, but I am not “see though.” I felt I wanted the world to know that I had been thinking of my son while I was training, preparing and ultimately achieving this objective. It would not have otherwise been possible. In the end, I did nothing because I didn’t want to let him down if I failed. Instead, I have posted my experience here for all the world to see if they so chose.