Remembering Grace Lovegrove

This is one of those rare occassions that you will see an article written by me that has nothing to do with running and by no means am I worrying about being professional or using correct grammar. I have always tried to keep my personal life private and away from my site\'s visitors, but I feel that there is something beyond me that is compelling me to publish this piece for all to see. I\'m simply a messenger for Him. This is about something that is far more important than the sport of running, which in times like these, seems almost like a trivial matter in life. Today, we lost Grace Lovegrove...

Grace was a dear friend and teammate of mine that I had known for roughly three years. I met her several years ago while she was a camper at the Ragged Mountain Running Camp. She was an avid fan of MileStat.com and the sport and was very excited to meet me. We kept in touch over her senior year as she kept me up to date with her running and life. I encouraged her to check out CNU as she was making her college decision, and she took my advice and made a visit to school. She really enjoyed her visit and shortly after decided to make a committment to join the team the following year. I got to bond with her more this previous summer as my soon to be CNU teammate was a counselor along with me at Ragged Mountain. Once she got to CNU, she was instantly well received by both the men\'s and women\'s team members as her happy-going and bubbly personality makes her hard not to like. Sometimes she would be smiling for just no reason at all. Her smile was always infectious. I noticed a great change in Grace when I first met her two summers ago at camp. When I first met Grace, she seemed to be very timid and shy. However, at CNU, she was in her element as she walked, talked, and acted as a person full of confidence and contentment in herself. She was definitely having one of the best years of her life and loving her time at CNU.

However, that best year of her life came to a sudden and abrupt end. While going for a light run with teammates on Monday morning in her first practice back since semester break, she suddenly collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. Her teammates and nearby strangers came to her side as she was quickly rushed by an ambulance to the local Riverside Hospital. They lost her a few times, but were able to revive her on numerous occassions. After they were able to get a pulse, an unconcious Grace was put on life support and placed in the intensive care unit at the hospital. Her parents were notified of the news and had to make the hardest drive of their lives from Roanoke to Newport News. I cannot imagine how awful and numbing that long drive was for them. Grace\'s family, coaches, teammates, and friends hoped and waited Grace would recover, but to our dismay, she was declared brain dead today and pulled off of the life support machines.

For me, Grace\'s death seems unreal. These past few weeks have been unreal to me as this is the third death I have had to deal with recently. On December 22nd, my old Midlothian high school teammate and good friend Hal Wilkins succumbed to his long battle with cancer at the age of 20. He would have had his 21st birthday on the fourth of this month. Hal never won a big race or ran fast times, but he had the heart and desire that myself and any other runner would envy. Hal had already beat cancer before and showed his great resilience. However, God decided that He needed a training partner for His next triathalon and He made an excellent choice in Hal. God rest Hal\'s soul.

However, the death that has shook me and affected me the most recently is that of my grandfather, Richard. The man I lovingly had called as \"Pop\" since I was a little baby passed on January 2nd. You may have wondered why the site updates have been very sluggish in the past month. The reason why is because I was back home taking care of and spending every last moment I could with probably the one person I have always revered the most. My grandfather and I had a very special and close relationship. He was always the man I could always look up to and aspire to be, while I was always the pride and joy in his eyes. He had open heart surgery back in August and at the time, the surgery was considered so life threatening that the doctor told my mother that all significant family members should be present just in case. I skipped out on my time trial that day at CNU, so I could be with my family and hope Pop would make it through the surgery. He did, but the doctor let us know afterwards that it was not looking good for the long term. My grandfather went in and out of the hospital throughout the fall and it kept my stomach in a whirl of emotions and anxiety as every phone call from my mom I feared would be \"the call\".

I was an emotional wreck all fall. School, running, this website, and everything else was put on the back burners. I simply did not want the death of my grandfather to come. Well as finals week approached at CNU, my mom let me know that my grandfather would only have weeks to live. You can bet anything that right after I finished my last final at school, I rushed home to spend time with my grandfather because I just always worried and would regret if I did not get that final goodbye in.

I tried to help anyway I could. My mom, a self-entrepreneur herself, was having a tough time trying to manage the business and stay at home to take care of her father. An only child, and a spoiled one as well, my mother had such a deep love and reverance for her father that I have yet to see in anyone else that I have come across in her lifetime. I saw the toll it was taking on her and told her I could take care of him during the day time so she can get away and out of the house and try to function in an everyday lifestyle manner. I spent most of the month of December watching and taking care of him during the day. As humbling an experience it was for himself to have his grandson babysit him, it was just as one for me as it was the first time I was stuck in a caregiver role. And I\'m glad I did it. It is so easy at this age to become narcisistic and only care about yourself, but when I was with my grandpa in those last weeks, the only person\'s well being I cared about was his.

I have never been much of a religious person and have always kind of doubted the existence of an afterlife, but what I witnessed in the last weeks of my grandfather\'s life and in his passing, I\'m a true believer of an all powerful God that has a special place for all God\'s children to go after their life here has ended. With the many trips in and out of the hospital this fall, my grandfather each time was paranoid and scared each time that this would be the last time he would make such a trip. However, in his final trip back from the hospital, he had a peace and calmness about himself that was very unlike him. He used to fear going to sleep and would stay sleepless all day as he feared if he went to sleep, he would never wake up. However, in those final weeks, he did not have that same uneasiness about falling asleep. God must have reassured his soul that he should not fear his death, but embrace it and cherish the life he has lifed on this Earth.

God also revealed himself and comforted me that Pop would soon be with him in Heaven on the day he passed. On Sunday morning, January 2nd, my stepfather awoke me around 7 AM and said \"I think Pop stopped breathing, can you check his pulse?\". I immediately sprang up and went beside Pop\'s bed and checked all over his body for a pulse. I got nothing. At that same moment, Pop\'s Amazon bird, Bonkers, called his name Richard. That there was too eerie for me because that bird had not called my grandfather\'s name in months, yet right as I was checking his pulse to confirm he had passed, that bird called his name. To me that was God\'s work. The worst was to come as my stepfather and I had the toughest job ever of waking up my mother to tell her that her beloved father had passed. The reaction of my mother when she heard the news and saw her deceased father is a painful memory that will always live inside of me.

We cried and grieved heavily that day and the following days and week. That is expected, but we were also able to take comfort in that Pop was going to be fine and in a better place. As the funeral home people came to pick up the body, my stepfather and I glanced over at the fish tank and it was completely clear. It had to have been God\'s miracle because that tank had been green and dirty for months after fruitless attempts by mom to clean it. Just as the bird calling my grandfather\'s name, the fish tank made a believer out of me and my family that God was present and my grandfather would be in good hands up above.

I feel very fortunate that I was able to spend those final weeks with my grandfather. It allowed for myself, my family, and him to make our peace and find some closure. The same was provided for Hal\'s family as he spent his final days with his parents and siblings. However, knowing that makes Grace\'s death all too unsettling for me as her parents, family, friends, and teammates did not get that chance to make their final goodbyes with her and reflect with her on a well run race of 18 years of life. Her parents are probably feeling inconsolable right now. Their last memories of Grace are of an emotionless and speechless daughter they loved and revered. They have good reasons to feel crushed and at a loss for words. Any parent would. The question with someone dying at such a young age and in such a sudden and unexplainable death is always \"Why???\".

The purpose of this letter is to answer that question for her parents, family, friends, coaches, and teammates. I saw God\'s work in the passing of my grandfather just recently. He does exist I promise you and there is a much greater and more enjoyable life awaiting us all after this one. Like God needed a triathlete training partner in Hal and a hardworking mechanic to fix up His old Jaguar in my grandfather, He sure would love to have Grace\'s perky personality and infectious smile around Him to cheer up His days. We all know that Grace had the same effect on us while she was here and that is why she will deeply missed and never forgotten. God rest her soul. For her fellow runners and teammates, remember Grace in your heart and minds always. Run for Grace. My deepest sympathy goes to Mr. and Mrs. Lovegrove and the rest of the Lovegrove family. I am going through the same feelings you are feeling, but just find relief that Grace is happier than ever up in that big playground they call Heaven. Let no one think about what they could have done, but think about what they can do now to live the life they want to live. Remembering those we have lost helps us not take for granted those precious days we have before us.

Sincerely,
Brandon Miles