His name is Terry Fox.

After almost two years of cancer treatment Terry starts training in the dark so no one will see him trying to figure out how to run on an artificial leg. Every day for 100 days. Thousands of training kilometres. Running until his stump is raw and bleeding. One day his artificial leg snaps and he hitchhikes home, clamps the leg back together, and goes out running again.

In the Spring of 1980 Terry Fox dips his leg in the Atlantic and begins work toward a goal – an 8000 km goal. Cold and lonely days at first, at one with pavement and an endless horizon. That tan van trailing behind. But soon, followers and the green shoots of an enduring movement as solid as the rock of the Canadian shield Terry last ran in. As the story goes, Terry waited until everyone was gone that day before getting in the van and asking to go to the hospital. It was never about him. He always said as much.

“Terry has completed the last kilometre of his marathon…he has left us a legacy of hope, which I think will live and become a part of our nation’s heritage,” said Alison Sinson – one of Terry’s caregivers – on June 28, 1981 as she announced that Terry Fox had died.

I was 13 years old then. I vividly remember three things about Terry Fox: 1) that hammer-skip sound of his feet erasing distance on pavement; 2) that face of fighting words and tears when he announced his cancer returned and he had to stop running; 3) the cacophony sound of the car horns in Winnipeg the day his funeral was held. I cried. Because even then I knew that the world was a lesser place for losing a very special soul.

5373 km – 143 days, 40 km per day. A “Marathon of Hope” per day.

Or, reflecting on the words of Terry Fox, an un-extinguished, hopeful light to guide our way: “You don’t have to do what I did – wait until you lose a leg or get some awful disease – before you can take the time to find out what kind of stuff you are made of. Start now.”

I still meet Terry in my dreams in the dark of night. He’s timely; it’s always when my spirit feels wayward, or vulnerable to self-doubt. He just stands there looking at me. And in looking at me, without a word, he’s telling me to get up, dust-off, and keep fighting a good fight – for the right reasons. To serve self less and to serve others more. If he could will himself toward a horizon line that only promised another horizon line of burning muscle amidst grey sky, and sleet-slicing flesh, then surely I can do one small thing a day to breathe life into a positive step forward for humanity.

We have it wrong these days in our communities. We don’t trust institutions designed to help us. We accept fear imposed on us by those who peddle dark and angry visions of the world. We elevate the superficial in social media, and the values-compromised in politics.

Terry’s story tells us to look elsewhere for our path forward. Civics classes in schools could help rebuild societal investment in the power of “community.” When I coach, I tell Terry’s story to reveal deeper truths about the power of character. We can find the “Terry’s” in our world around us who both believe and invest in the great things that can happen when we unleash possibilities in the bridges we build between us. A necessary first step is to have a critical mass of do-gooders tell those who want to build walls between us to sit down and zip it.

To me, Terry Fox was Canada’s last and best great hero in a world now so desperately in need of heroes. But don’t let his message get lost. He was asking all of us to find the hero in ourselves.

“I just wish people would realize that anything’s possible if you try; dreams are made possible if you try.” Terry Fox

Src 1 – Terry Fox background story condensed from – http://www.terryfox.org/TerryFox/The_Marathon_of_Hope.html