Where is the marathon runner?

Even the weather loves the multitude of amatoristic runners that every year put their shoes on to feel good about themselvers. This became evident when an unusual warm springy sun started shining on the Eindhoven's marathon today. It is always good weather on the day of the marathon.
None of the other attributes of this day have changed, the crowd, the music, the impossibility to go anywhere by car. Only one thing is different this year. We are not part of this loathed circus.

In the past few years we had taken upon ourselves the ultimate integration challenge for our daughter, running the MiniMarathon with Nora's school team. The oddity of this activity will not appear to you if you don't know that Nora's school is specialized in children with (severe)motoric disfunctions.
We  had always found this effort from the school to participate in the local marathon honourable and touching. Very educational in its attempt to show the children that everything is possible if you go for it, very non Dutch.

This year we are not part  of it as I have said, Nora's condition has deteriorated to a point that it felt a cruelty to push her to participate into an effort her body can simply not take anymore. One part of me does not regret spending a quiet day at home, away from the nonsensical bustle. The other part thinks about the reason why we are not there, is a door really closing for Nora?

She is enjoying the quiet day at home even more than me and the visit of her grandparents today is the only thing on her mind. Her grandparents are coming from Brussels......gosh we have to pick them up at the Flixbus stop in the center of town. With the city marathon running.....OMG. Very dark clouds are suddently crowding over my day.

I keep repeating myself that I can do this, I will study the route and retreive my parents without mishaps. If we choose the right route it won't take us more than 15 minutes. As planned we get into the car and effortlessly we get to the bus stop, damn the bus is not there yet and there is nowhere to park, no panic I have this. We start making another round to allow some more minutes for the bus to come, but this was not planned so we end up right onto an overpass ramp which leads us right into the runners. The traffic is totally blocked and we are stuck, no panic, I have got this.

After 10 minutes standing still I do the only thing that sane people in my situation would do, I turn around and I get off the ramp driving against traffic, with Nora in the back screaming in terror. We avoid a couple of frontal collisions and we finally manage to retrieve the grandparents and get back home, not without noticing that after our stunt the police has finally blocked the ramp, something they should have done in the first place, I would say.

Is there anything for me to learn today? Of course! One does not have to run the marathon to run into an adventure and eventually feel good about oneself.    

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