Lucy Fox

My Mom, Lucy Fox, is the reason I founded Run While You Can. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) more than a decade ago. PD has changed some things about her life, but so far nothing has stopped her from being active and keeping busy. She currently lives in southern Rhode Island with my Dad. Together we teamed up to raise awareness for the struggle that millions affected by Parkinson’s face, and to raise funds that will aid in the search for a cure. Thank you for joining us.

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My Mother has always been an important influence in my life, and certainly an inspiration. She was the first to teach me the value of hard work, and she repeated the lesson time and time and again. Not just by telling me either, she taught by example. For all of my life, my Mother has kept (beautifully) acres of gardens at our house in Rhode Island. There are clean and disciplined flower beds that wrap around the entirety of the house. There are the wildflowers spread haphazardly throughout our small meadow, framed by rows of apple trees (expertly pruned by my Dad, under the even more expert direction of my Mom). And of course, her crowning agricultural achievements have to be her vegetable gardens. Anyone who has ever visited our house in RI can attest to just how breathtaking a first tour through these gardens can be. Dark purple morning glories poke out from the chaos of their vines that blanket the impressive 10-foot height of the north fence. Verdant, healthy-looking Hops do the same on the south fence. The fence is so high because Mom was tired of coming up with new ways to keep the pesky deer from devouring her hard work. Inside those fences you’ll find a vegetarian paradise, not that anyone in my family is one. From Potatoes to Broccoli, Pumpkins to Garlic, Cucumbers to Tomatoes, it’s all there, it’s all healthy, it’s all perfectly tended. You might think, on first, and even second glance, that perhaps a team of 10 experts works around the clock weeding, trimming, mowing and watering. It’s not the case though, it’s just Mom (Dad mans the rototiller on the weekends) and her unmatched affinity for truly hard work.

Years of childhood seeing my Mother bent over a shovel or riding around on a tractor, cutting and hauling brush, moving stumps and rocks has made an impact. It’s impossible to see your mother sweat and toil and not be inspired. Especially as I got older, stronger and more capable, I didn’t feel I had to help out, I just wanted to. Because of my Mother’s influence, I can honestly count digging holes with a shovel as a favorite hobby. She taught me, in her way, to embrace the pain of that work, to smile at the blisters and calluses on my hands, and to simply shrug off the sunburns on my shoulders, even if it hurt to do so. So while it was my Dad who helped spark my love of adventure and the outdoors, it was my Mother’s lessons about hard work and toughness that I called upon during the long days and nights on the trail. It’s those lessons that carried me through cold, rain, blisters and breaks, steeps, mud, and racking exhaustion, for more than 2,400 miles with (at the least) an ironic smile.

My Mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s more than 11 years ago now. While I have seen changes in her life, her hobbies, and often times her ability to do the things she used to love so much, I have not seen changes in who she is. Her dedication to the ‘important’ things has not wavered. Hiking and skiing have simply been replaced by growing hops and brewing beer; a switch that many less hardy individuals would have made decades ago, sick or not. Biking and Kayaking, replaced by quality time spent with her Grandson. She takes a lot of medications, loses sleep, deals with a certain general discomfort that one unaffected by a neurological condition should feel blessed they do not understand, and yet, she is still so unmistakably herself (her gardens certainly haven‘t noticed that she’s sick). I have said that my mother is an inspiration to me, but it is not because she is bravely fighting Parkinson’s, it is because there was never any doubt that she would face and defeat whatever challenge arose. I don’t dedicate my training and my efforts on the Pacific Crest Trail to her battle with a terrible disease, I simply dedicate them to her, for being my Mom, for all that she’s done and all that she is.

Thanks Mom,

Love, Sam.