Death in the family

We know that our Marist Running family is interconnected through the years and the decades. I’ve been blessed to be part of almost every generation of the team’s existence – as a runner for four years in the mid-1980s (1982-1986) and of course as a coach for the past 29 years (1991-present). That’s hundreds of athletes, coaches, teammates run with, van rides, bus trips, Facebook posts and everything in between. It’s a lot of wonderful human beings – past, present, future. All blessings. Sadly, we are not immune to the ups and downs of life, including loss. And late last week, we lost two of our own.

Karen Mangan Carson (Class of 1997) had been battling cancer (f**kin’ cancer, always wins) for the past few years. Lately, the news had been positive. But, much like our brother Eric Bergmann last year, the encouraging news took a turn south, and quickly, and now Karen is gone. Way too soon, with a young family and a grieving Marist Running family that cannot mourn together in person right now, for obvious reasons. This era of our team – the mid-to-late 1990s into the early 2000s – is when coach Phil Kelly and I really started building a big sense of family and community. We were getting the hang of recruiting, and we were attracting like-minded men and women to join our team. Always with the goal of winning and putting out fast, championship-caliber women and men. But never forgetting that we are people first and that we should love one another and enjoy each other’s company. Karen was a big part of that group, and this classic photo of the women in the back of the van (Karen, front/left) really encapsulates what we were – and, in so many ways, what we still are. Only difference is now, the grumpy old guy behind the wheel would probably be barking at Karen and Mary and Colleen and Melissa and Jen and the others to buckle their seatbelts. We mourn Karen and we pray for comfort for her young family.

And then on Sunday we heard, via Facebook, of the sudden loss of Bill Tucker, a teammate and friend from the late 1980s. Bill was a local boy (raised in Poughkeepsie, went to Our Lady of Lourdes High School) and I remember going to his parents’ house on Wilbur Boulevard many times during and after graduation from Marist. Bill was a global citizen, moving and living all over the world over the past several decades. On Saturday, he was still writing irreverent posts on Facebook. On Sunday morning, like the rest of us expecting to wake up, he did not. His wife posted on his FB page, saying they are suspecting it was a heart attack. The details do not matter. Bill, living in Bath, England, is gone. His son, Liam, is a current Marist student. I met him last summer. Good kid, reminds me of a lot of guys on our team. We shared similar music tastes. Now his dad, our old friend, gone in the blink of an eye. As though we need a reminder that we are all day-to-day, we got a double dose over the weekend. Pray for their families.