The story of Terry Fox
I remember reading the story of Terry fox while living in Canada. The story was so inspiring that I always consider it a good illustration of how one should live his life… people never knew him, many never met him, but they know he passed through their world by the trail of light he left behind him.
Terry fox was a twenty-two year old university student in Canada. A keen sportsman, he was on the college basket-ball team when in 1977 he contracted bone cancer and had to have his right leg amputated. While in the hospital someone sent him a newspaper clipping telling him about an amputee who ran in New York City marathon.
This fired Terry’s imagination so much that he wanted to do something useful with the few remaining years of his life. He decided to run across Canada from the Atlantic to the pacific to raise money for the fight against cancer. He spent eighteen months practicing running with his artificial leg and then on 12 April 1980 he began to run. He dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic in Newfoundland and set out with pledges for over one million dollars in his pocket.
Then tragedy struck when he was one hundred and fourteen days and three thousand miles into the run. The cancer spread to his lungs and he was forced to give up. As he lay in hospital bed pledges totaling twenty-four million dollars came pouring in. when he died, a stamp was issued in his honor and the nation’s highest accolade, the order of Canada, was conferred on him.
But the story did not end there. Donal Mars, a postman in Cincinnati decided to complete the run. Like terry, he too was a cancer victim with just a short time to live. He began in the mid-west and ran to san Francisco. As he dipped his hand in the Pacific Ocean people noticed a large rainbow arched across the sky.
Terry and Donal could have cursed the darknesss- instead; they decided to light a candle….
