‘Dear Terry’: Advancing the Marathon of Hope legacy toward new beginnings

Forty-three years later, Fred still tours the world, sharing the story of a fighter who shaped a unique corner of this country’s identity, and advanced cancer research to heights it may never have achieved if not for Terry’s marathon-a-day.

Fred Fox, brother to Terry Fox, speaks at Holy Family School in Red Deer on Sept. 14, 2023. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

To many, it may not have occurred that Terry’s prosthetic leg was not designed for running, Fred notes, never mind a monumental 42 kilometres a day for several months straight, and across the diverse terrain Canada has to offer. Its design is in stark contrast to the bladed prosthetics elite runners utilize today.

But Terry, whose name often appears in online debates about the greatest pure athlete of all-time, nonetheless achieved this superhuman feat for 143 days; that is until a fateful day in September 1980.

The cancer had returned, in his lungs, the organ with an importance so painfully vital to even the healthiest of runners.

“I’ve run three marathons and I don’t know how Terry could possibly have done that. What kept Terry going was all the people he saw going through cancer treatments,” says Fred, who describes younger Terry as an average kid. “Of all the accolades Terry received, plus statues and schools named after him, the 1980 Lou Marsh Award which acknowledged his athletic effort as Canada’s top male athlete would be what he was the proudest of.”

It was the evening of Sept. 1, 1980 — Fred, Terry’s slightly older brother, told K-5 students at Red Deer’s Holy Family School on Sept. 14, 2023 — when the Foxes parents were watching the TV newscast from British Columbia.

The lead story shared Terry was in a Thunder Bay hospital, after having run 5,373 km over 143 days, including 21 on his last. There was nothing much more to answer the questions or quell the fears welling up.

Terry got a hold of his parents a few hours later, telling them dejectedly that he’d have to stop the run… for now.

“He said, ‘If there’s any way I can get back out there and finish, I will,’” Fred recalls. Terry died June 28, 1981, after catching pneumonia, at 22-years-old.

Fred Fox (right) talks with student Alexis Cooper and phys. ed. teacher Jackie Weddell, with this year’s Terry Fox Run shirts which highlight the words ‘Dear Terry.’ (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

“Dear Terry,” says Jeff Tuchscherer, principal, Holy Family School. “I have deep and sincere gratitude for you having been a model of perseverance in the face of something absolutely horrible, giving us someone we can look up to as a person who wouldn’t quit, and for thinking of others.”

Finish what you’ve started — that was Terry’s undying dogma.

Even as a toddler, playing with building blocks, he didn’t give up when they’d fall down, Fred says.

“That should’ve been an indication of the determination he’d later show during the Marathon of Hope,” says Fred, who will participate in upcoming Terry Fox Runs in Winnipeg, New York City and Mumbai.

Fred noted during his talk that prior to Terry spawning the idea of running across Canada for cancer research, funding for said research was nowhere close to the level it is today, even relatively speaking.

Thankfully, cancer survival rates have improved vastly, with new treatments, and better early detection, Fred says of what the foundation’s work has led to.

Of the $850 million, more than $23,000 has come from Holy Family School, holding the run for 20+ years. It, along with many, many more, will do so again this week.

“We’ll never truly know,” says Fred on how the landscape of cancer research may have played out differently if not for Terry achieving what likely seemed to many at one point as impossible.

Jackie Weddell, a phys. ed. Teacher at Holy Family for over two decades, has been instrumental in keeping the Terry Fox Run alive at the school.

“Dear Terry,” Weddell says. “I think I’d want to talk to him about how big this is now. That’s exactly what he wanted, everybody to know about why cancer research is important. Students need to know about it.”

Following his speech, students at Holy Family School in Red Deer lined up to shake Fred Fox’s hand. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

Why do they need to know?

“We have so many people with cancer. Ask a class and so many of the students will know someone who has or had it. We’ve had quite a few staff who’ve had cancer over the years too. It’s so important to keep it going,” says Weddell.

And that’s what Terry did; he kept going, while the world has helped him finish, in some sense, what he started.

Day one of the Marathon of Hope, he collected some water from the Atlantic to put in the Pacific, dipping his foot in also, and writing in his journal, “Today is the day it all begins.”

Dear Terry…

All these years later, the people of this world happily continue carrying your legacy onward and upward to new beginnings.

While schools hold their own Terry Fox Runs, the Red Deer Terry Fox Run is taking place Sunday, Sept. 17 at Gateway Christian School (4210 59 Street). Registration is at 10 and the run is at 11, with distances of 1 km, 5 km, and 10 km. Register here.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

‘Dear Terry’: Advancing the Marathon of Hope legacy toward new beginnings

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