Being well aware of my own flaws as friend, partner and father, I’ve always admired the way my friend Cam inhabits all those roles.
No matter the number of stumbles on my part, his friendship and support are never in doubt. And when I felt that I had most let him down, what did the sweet bastard do? He comforted me.
Now, he’s not perfect. Not knowing what a gridiron was and exceedingly poor taste in headwear are prominent challenges. But he’s a good man. And as two guys in their 50s (he looks older but I am), we don’t share how we feel nearly enough. Though, that might just be me. That’s why I’m so excited to be able to run along side him in this special project.
I’ll let him explain.
There’s a hill behind our house we refer to fondly as Georgia’s Mountain. It’s not actually called that, but that’s how we think of it. Georgia used to climb up it when she was young. She’d go up there and just look out over the valley and think. It was her peaceful place. (That photo at the top of the page is her on top of the hill when she was 15.)
Starting at 5 am on July 1, I’ll be running up and down this hill over and over and over until I’ve accumulated 5,000 vertical metres. The hill is about 40 metres high and a quarter of a kilometre bottom to top. Which means I’ll have to climb it 125 times give or take, covering approximately 65 kilometres in the process.
Is it going to be hard? Yes.
But to me this route is important. Because for many people suffering from mental illness, every day is like waking up, and looking up a hill with feelings of dread, knowing they have to climb it yet again. Every day, over and over, the same hill of pain, anguish and distress.
For those who don’t know, Cam’s daughter took her own life on October 4, 2016 – just three weeks shy of her 19th birthday. In her goodbye letter to her family, she asked: “Please tell the truth about why I died. We need to open up the conversation.”
And since then Cam and his family have done that, exhibiting nothing but strength and compassion along the way. They started Georgia’s Wish and this run is a fundraiser for that.
On Canada Day, I’m going to do my best to get Cam near the finish line so he and Georgia run across the line together.
If you’d like to help, here’s the link to donate
On the Right Side 
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