The Legacy of Terry Fox

By Leslie Scrivener – The Toronto Star

I was a young reporter, not long at The Toronto Star, when my editor asked me to find a young man named Terry Fox – he was somewhere in Newfoundland. She told me that Terry had lost a leg to cancer and was trying to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. “See if he’s for real,” she said. By mid afternoon, I was speaking to Terry Fox.

His voice was young, hopeful, and happy as he told me about his Marathon of Hope. His dream was to run 8,530 kilometres (5,300 miles) across Canada and raise maybe $1 million to fight the disease that had claimed his leg. It was April 1980 and Newfoundland weather was harsh and unpredictable. He told me about being buffeted by high winds, about running in snow and freezing rain. His good leg was strong and muscular, and his artificial leg was made of fibreglass and steel. It was painfully difficult, but he was cheery and confident and at the end of our interview I was certain he was unstoppable.

He also made sure I understood one more thing: he didn’t think of himself as disabled. After that, we spoke every week, and I learned he was from Port Coquitlam, BC, he was the second of four children, and his parents were Betty and Rolly. His family was close, hardworking and competitive. They all loved to win.

Terry wanted to play basketball when he was in grade eight, and despite his small size, his phys-ed teacher Bob noticed the “little guy who worked his rear off.’’ After three practices Bob suggested Terry might be better suited to another sport, but Terry persisted, and finally made the team. When Bob said: “If you want something you have to work for it, because I’m not interested in mediocrity.” Terry heard him.

So Terry worked hard, and by grade 10, he and his friend Doug shared the Athlete of the Year award, winning it again in their last year of high school. His first year at Simon Fraser University, he made the junior varsity basketball team – there were more talented players, but none with a greater desire to win.

Terry was studying kinesiology and thinking of being a phys-ed teacher, when a pain in his knee he assumed was a sports injury sent him to the doctor. But it wasn’t a sports injury. To his great shock, Terry learned he was suffering from osteogenic sarcoma, a rare bone cancer.

It was March 1977 and he was 18 years old.

He hardly understood what the doctors told him. What was a malignant tumour? They explained they would amputate his leg and follow up with chemotherapy to catch any stray cancer cells in his blood. The night before his operation, his basketball coach brought him a story about a one legged runner who competed in the Boston Marathon. Already Terry began to wonder, could he do something like that, maybe even run across Canada, with one leg?

Terry faced the loss of a leg as another challenge. “No one is ever going to call me a quitter,’ he said. He learned to wear his artificial leg, played golf with his Dad and began a gruelling sixteen-month course of chemotherapy. He lost his hair and was weak from nausea. In the cancer clinic, he heard young people crying out in pain; he heard doctors telling patients they had a 15 per cent chance of surviving.

When Terry left the clinic, he was more than a survivor; he had a new sense of compassion and responsibility. His hair grew back thick and curly. He’d been blessed with life, the greatest gift of all, and he was determined to live as an inspiration, that others might find courage from his example. While still undergoing chemotherapy, Rick Hansen recruited him to join a wheelchair basketball team. And then secretly, quietly, in 1979, he began training for his great dream – running across Canada.

He started with a short run around a cinder track. It nearly killed him, but then he did a bit more, and then amazingly, a week later he ran 1.6 kilometres (one mile). He was drained, but ecstatic. Terry ran and he ran and he ran. Sometimes the stump on his leg bled and his mother, rarely at a loss for words, would bite her lip and turn away in tears. Betty and Rolly weren’t happy with his plan to run across Canada, but they knew too well his strong and stubborn will. In a letter he wrote when he began seeking sponsorship, he said he felt privileged to be alive. He said: “I remember promising myself, that should I live, I would rise up to meet this new challenge face to face, and prove myself worthy of life, something too many people take for granted.”

With a handful of sponsors and a donated camper van driven by his best friend Doug, Terry began his Marathon of Hope. On April 12, 1980 he gazed for a moment out over the harbour in St John’s, Newfoundland, dipped his artificial leg in water, turned, and started running.

Terry ran through the Atlantic Provinces, then through Quebec and Ontario, incredibly averaging a marathon – 42 kilometres (26 miles) – every single day. Once in his diary he described his running as “the usual torture”.

And all of Canada fell in love with him along the way. Creating images that will stay in our hearts forever, in sun, and rain and early morning mist, Terry’s familiar lop-sided gait took him through cities, towns and villages, and day-by-day his fame grew. There was something in his good nature, his simple words, sunburnt good looks, his astonishing strength and the greatness of his dream that brought many who saw him to tears and admiration.

He wanted to run, but believing that advances in research had saved his life, he was also determined to raise money for research. And so he often stopped along the way, and standing on picnic tables, talked to crowds, kids, and reporters, even then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau. He’d visit schools and take off his artificial leg and show the children how it worked. As the kilometres passed, people began calling him a Canadian hero. He didn’t like that; still seeing himself as just an ordinary person, even though hundreds, sometimes thousands of people would wait to see him pass on the highways or at city halls, acknowledging his courage, and cheering him on in accomplishing his dream.

And so it went that glorious summer of 1980 – he ran 5,374 kilometres (3,339 miles) in 143 days. And then, on September 1st, 11 kilometres (seven miles) outside Thunder Bay, Ontario, something felt terribly wrong in his chest. The pains were so bad, he wondered if he was having a heart attack, but whatever it was, he needed to see a doctor. The doctor confirmed his worst fears – the cancer was back, this time in his lungs. Terry had run his last mile – The Marathon of Hope – was over.

Or so it seemed.

He was flown home the next day lying on a stretcher, with his parents Betty and Rolly at his side. He’d raised $1.7 million dollars. And then, despite the sorrow felt by Canadians everywhere, something wonderful happened. As he lay in a hospital bed with the cancer fighting drugs flowing silently into his body, the whole country went crazy raising money for cancer research – just as he hoped it would.

Terry bravely fought the disease another 10 months. And all of Canada fought with him. Once while watching a hockey game on TV, he saw a banner that read: KEEP ON FIGHTING, TERRY FOX! strung along the stands. Despite the prayers of thousands, he died just before dawn on June 28, 1981, his family at his side. But before he died, he knew he had realized his dream; $24.17 million had been raised in his name – a dollar from every Canadian.

Canada was plunged into mourning. Flags flew at halfmast, condolences came from around the world, and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau personally paid him tribute in the House of Commons. But the legacy of Terry Fox didn’t end here. In 2000, the twentieth anniversary of his Marathon of Hope, The Terry Fox Foundation raised $20 million. And in total, since Terry first dipped his leg in St John’s Harbour, over $600 million dollars has been raised in Terry’s name. Terry became the youngest recipient of The Order of Canada, our nation’s highest civilian honour.

Just outside Thunder Bay, a section of the Trans-Canada Highway has been re-named The Terry Fox Courage Highway. Along it on a hill overlooking Lake Superior near the spot where he was forced to stop, stands a nine-foot bronze statue of Terry in running stance, facing towards his western home. Terry inspired and united an entire generation of Canadians and so the monument was designed, joining east with west, proudly displaying all provincial and territorial coats-of-arms, and the Canadian emblems of the Maple Leaf and Beaver.

And, in September of every year, Terry Fox Runs are held across Canada and in over 50 other countries, so that his dream now spans the world.

I run, or sometimes walk every year in the Terry Fox Run. My favourite one was September 15, 1991, when I was pregnant, and overdue. I’d intended to walk a symbolic kilometre for Terry, but the day was fine and I kept walking until to my surprise, I’d walked close to six kilometres (four miles). Not surprisingly, little David was born that night. Now he’s 10, a beautiful, dark haired boy who loves soccer and hockey and baseball. I often think, he’s not the best player on the team, but his coaches love him – because he’s so determined and works so hard, like someone whose strong and youthful voice I first heard on the telephone so many years ago.