While this industry is united in our sadness and grief for the loss of Sinead Moodie, there was an ocean of added empathy from me as in 2011 I also lost my own daughter Brontë, aged just 12, after a long five-year battle with leukaemia, writes Paul Hogan.
Coping simultaneously with his own serious illness, Sinead’s Dad Martin was an incredible supporter of Bron’s struggle, even coming to her funeral despite still convalescing from his own stomach cancer operation and treatment (I’m afraid I was just too cowardly to attend Sinead’s).
Martin also wrote some very beautiful and treasured things about Bron, especially after the birth of her baby sister, Queenie, in 2013.
Thoughts of these two girls, both taken way too early, filled my head as I set off on 27 February from my son Max’s home in Angel-Islington (once the cheap property of the Monopoly board) for my own #KickCancerThon* run to our family home in Cowden, Kent – a distance of 52km. That is, conveniently, the defining length of an ‘ultra marathon’ and certainly the most I have ever run in one go.
The central ‘thought’ throughout the day was, as Martin profoundly wrote in his loving funeral eulogy for Sinead: “You know how she fought like hell.” Indeed, both our girls valiantly fought the ultimate fight – I will always remember Bron saying to me very late one night, shortly before we lost her: “This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
People say this casually all the time – but it’s the only time I’ve ever heard it said with the full force of its true meaning. I’d also never felt so useless. {Main article continues below the panel that follows}
*About #KickCancerThon
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Since then, I’ve run almost 20 competitive marathons, and inevitably from time to time, I’ve hit the wall with the feeling that ‘I just can’t go on’. That, my friends, is the time to remember how Sinead and Bron “fought like hell” – to give yourself a good slap, and to go and finish the job.
Powered by these ‘thoughts’, I did not have any great difficulties with my ‘ultra challenge’, apart from the need to keep to 52km by navigating some suburban streets and alleys which were completely unknown to me.
During which, a mixture of rain and my running motion seemed to have upset Google Maps, which loaded in an old journey plan of how to get to Bristol. Fortunately I quickly noticed the extra 190km on the destination count-down.
I had two brief recovery stops – at my sister Bridget’s house in West Wickham – her husband John Verdon worked with The Moodie Davitt’s long-time Associate Editor Colleen Morgan [now with TRunblocked and Essential Communications, Colleen attended Sinead’s funeral in Wales] on the Christchurch Star in New Zealand in the 1970s – small world or what? I also paused at the Biggin Hill Memorial Chapel where I prayed for both Sinead and Bron, a completely appropriate place to remember our brave daughters.
I was deliberately slow – I set a 7.45 min/km pace and the run took me 7 hours 22 minutes. Used to my antics, my family showed no great interest in my arrival home, although my two dogs lovingly bounded out to greet their master and eat my remaining stocks of delicious Jack Link’s Beef Jerky and Biltong, the on-the-go protein snacks which had sustained me throughout the day.
We usually eat virtually nothing else but Jack Link’s on our long shifts on the TFWA Daily where we are always reliably delivered an inexhaustible supply by the lovely Jack Link’s people. Jack Link’s also unhesitatingly sponsored this #KickCancerThon run for a whacking US$3,000.
I feel for Martin. When you lose someone, especially a young someone, you are left with a void that never fills and, whatever people tell you, there is never any closure or consolation. But you have to do something with the great energies and focus that are suddenly no longer required, and Sinead has left us #KickCancerThon which will save many lives.
Martin told me, in a probably unguarded and private moment, that Sinead had wanted to call it ‘F***CancerThon’ – something which I wish was possible, as the infamy might have achieved even greater sums than the fabulous, fast-growing amount raised by all those who loved and admired Sinead and her adoring family. Long live #KickCancerThon. ✈
#KickCancerThon continuesWe will be reporting on many more #KickCancerThon initiatives in coming days as the campaign continues into March and beyond. Please send photos and details of your chosen cause to Martin Moodie at Martin@Moodie DavittReport.com Coming up soon:
A decade ago Sophie Kay created a marvellous piece (pictured right) for a UK charity that, like #KickCancerThon, was raising money and awareness for cancer charities (and, as the image conveys, lung cancer specifically). Sophie painted this beautiful artpiece and donated it for auction at a charity dinner, subsequently raising £2.5k (US$3.3k) for lung cancer research. The brilliantly talented young artist has offered to paint a second work for #KickCancerThon. Her father Ian and Wand Technology kindly submitted the first £1k (US$1.3k) guaranteed bid. Martin Moodie raised the bid to £1.3k (US$1.7k), only to be topped by his friend and colleague, The Moodie Davitt Report Publisher Irene Revilla who tabled a US$2k offer. Any further bids (which will go a cancer cause of your choice) can be made via Martin@MoodieDavittReport.com |
