Ten Years Later (22 page)

“I think a little bit of hope,” says Diane. “Wanting to see a positive side, knowing
we all have obstacles, we’re not perfect. They want to think,
Maybe I can try, too,
or
Gosh, maybe what I have isn’t that bad,
or
Thanks for motivating me
.”

Diane is grateful for the chance to share what she’s learned. She’s also relieved
to have sorted through the past with her family. She now knows that her brain wasn’t
the only thing scarred by her seizures.

“For my mom’s seventy-fifth birthday, we took her downtown and we stayed in a nice
hotel,” Diane says. “She made the comment that she still has a hard time looking at
me, because for so many years she used to watch me to make sure my eyes didn’t glaze
or show signs of trouble.”

I ask Diane about her own imprinted fear. Does she still worry about having a seizure?

“I think about it sometimes, sure. When I’m in the Yukon, in the middle of nowhere,
it’s fifty below, there’s a little reminder there. When I’m hallucinating and pushing,
there’s a little mouse behind me saying, ‘Be smart.’ ”

Diane’s 2011 Achilles injury got her thinking about the day that her body won’t allow
her to run ultramarathons anymore.

“I told Scott, my only problem is I get bored. I love being in the middle of everything.
I love action, so I need to find that next step. I need to embrace what I can still
do and what I’ve done,” she says. “I’ve done the longest and the coldest and the hardest.
What more is there?”

Oh, there’s more. Don’t let her fool you.

In October 2011, Diane was speaking in Raleigh, North Carolina, representing the North
Face. Tickets to the event benefited a local nonprofit organization trying to raise
money to further develop a foot trail across the entire state. The Mountains-to-Sea
Trail stretches nearly one thousand miles, from Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smoky
Mountains to Jockey’s Ridge on the Outer Banks. The diverse route ranges from the
third-tallest mountain peak in the eastern United States to the largest natural sand
dune on the East Coast. The trail passes through thirty-seven counties and three national
parks, and meanders by three lighthouses, including the nation’s tallest, the Cape
Hatteras Lighthouse. Three ferry rides are required.

The group’s efforts to generate exposure for the trail piqued Diane’s curiosity.

“And I said, ‘Well, anybody ever run it?’ ”

Uh-huh. You know where this is going. Organizers told her that only one man had speed-trekked
the trail, and he did it in twenty-four days. That was all Diane needed to hear. She
proposed the expedition to the North Face, it was approved, and her goal was to complete
it in twenty-one days. She’d need to run an average of more than forty miles per day
with several days of fifty-plus-mile runs.

On June 1, 2012, at fifty-two years old, Diane completed the Mountains-to-Sea Trail
expedition in twenty-two days, five hours, and three minutes, breaking the old record
of twenty-four days, three hours, and fifty minutes set in 2011 by North Carolinian
Matt Kirk, twenty-two years younger than Diane. Following a May 10 start from Clingman’s
Dome in the Appalachians, Diane trekked nearly one thousand miles across North Carolina,
reaching the Atlantic Ocean and Jockey’s Ridge State Park on June 1 at 9:29
A.M
. EDT. She calls it the hardest expedition she’s ever completed.

“The pain was excruciating,” Diane says. “I’m really good at focusing on the task
and not being distracted, but I’ve never had to dig so deep and deal with so many
emotions and try to stay levelheaded for so long.”

For Diane, the golden moment came not at the finish, but two miles out. She gathered
the eight people—all volunteers—who’d been with her the entire journey, who’d made
her victory possible. She asked them to form a circle.

“I just wanted to gather everybody and hold hands, and I just went into prayer to
thank God for the journey, and the gifts, and the gift of life, the beauty he had
shown through every person who was with me,” she recalls. “We were all together and
holding hands and crying; you could just hear tears hitting the concrete. There was
this photographer who had been following me all the way—in-my-face kind of stuff—and
I thought,
You know what? If we’re gonna give him a shot, let’s give him this
. That circle of love, that circle of life, that circle of overcoming everything we
came through, was right there. That was really powerful. That one picture, that one
shot of us all holding hands, is probably the best memory I’ll have.”

Scott flew to Raleigh to meet Diane a few hours after she finished.

“When he took me to the hotel room, it just felt so good to put my arms around him,
to be in bed and feel his body next to mine. My legs
were just hurting so bad, and he rubbed my legs all night. He knew what to do. That
was just so comforting to me. To be in bed with my husband. That was the moment when
I was like,
Wow, I’m done.”

Diane describes the thousand-miler as being her one last Big Daddy accomplishment.
But don’t look for a rocking chair on her front porch just yet.

“I don’t think so.” She adds jokingly, “If I’m in one it’s because I’m on medication.”

For now, as always, she’s focused on whatever is around the next rugged bend.

“I’m so much an in-the-moment person. I can think forward a day or two, maybe a week,
but if you get so set on your goals, you miss the other opportunities,” she says.
“And that’s what I’ve always told the kids: ‘You can have your goals but don’t miss
the right turn, left turn, right turn,’ because that’s where our character and confidence
and self-esteem come from.”

If you ask Diane what else she hopes her kids have learned from her and what she’d
like her legacy to be, her answer is straightforward.

“Live your dream. Believe in yourself. You can do it. You just gotta try. Embrace
life.”

The words line up like even steps along a mountain trail. They are positive and powerful,
just like Diane.

In September 2001, I was assigned a
Dateline NBC
story for a network special highlighting the horrific aftermath of 9/11. My job was
to interview Ron Clifford, just a few days after he suffered tremendous loss in the
wake of the terrorist attacks. When he walked into the small room we had set up as
a studio, we exchanged hellos and Ron asked me about the origin of my name. My heart
dropped, knowing his had just been broken by people from the Middle East. When I replied,
“Egypt,” Ron told me to stand up. I slowly stood, wondering if, in his searing pain,
he was about to lash out at me. Instead, Ron threw his arms around me. He hugged me
close and told me that he loved Anwar Sadat and the Egyptian culture. That was just
the start of my immense respect and love for Ron Clifford. It grows each time I sit
down to talk with him.

Ron Clifford grew up in southeastern Ireland in the lush city of Cork. The centuries-old
Irish seaport is blessed with rivers, bays, and one of the world’s largest natural
harbors. With easy access to both fresh and salt water, the Clifford family always
owned speedboats and cabin cruisers. One of five children, Ron was raised with his
older brother,
John, his younger sister, Ruth, and two younger brothers, Gordon and Mark. Their home
was constantly bustling with neighborhood friends of all ages. Mr. Clifford, a paper
merchant, often took his kids camping, waterskiing, and fishing. He taught them all
to crew and sail on neighbors’ sailboats. Ron clearly loved his brothers, but just
a year apart in age from Ruth, he developed a particularly close relationship with
his sister. They shared mutual friends and enjoyed spending time together.

“She wasn’t allowed out of the house at night without me,” Ron says. “We were both
fun seekers.”

During their early teens, Ruth and Ron loved to sneak out for a joyride in their dad’s
car. They’d cruise the back roads of Cork at night.

“And then at two or three o’clock in the morning, we’d push it back in the driveway.
We were in it together, and we would sometimes pick up friends and take off somewhere
in the car.”

Ron and Ruth had an easy relationship. They loved to laugh and talk, and she was known
in the neighborhood as a compassionate girl, the one who would drop off food to a
family when someone was sick.

“I was always just proud that I had a sister like her,” Ron says. “It was always fun
to be with her.”

When the kids were teens and preteens, their parents separated and, after several
years, divorced. Dad stayed with the children; Mom moved to Dublin to take care of
her ailing mother. For a year, the sole female influence in the family was Ruth. She
often mothered her brothers, and they listened.

“It wasn’t us arriving on our motorcycles to a dance.” Ron shakes his pointer finger
as if it’s his sister’s. “Ruth made sure we wore ties and behaved ourselves.” He smiles.
“We were kind of crude with our jokes, but you’d never do that in front of Ruth.”

In the family kitchen, Ruth was an accomplished and creative cook.

“She could take one peek in the fridge and figure out how to make a gourmet meal.”

During high school, the brothers were willing guinea pigs for Ruth’s culinary pursuits.
Ron remembers his sister perfecting a dish she entered in a competition (which she
won) hosted by Ireland’s fisheries board.

“Haddock à la cràme. It was spectacular!” he recalls. “We would beg her to experiment
with us. She displayed it on silver platters with mandarin oranges. It was a judge’s
delight.”

In 1973, in order to be with her new husband, Ron’s mom moved to the United States,
taking seventeen-year-old Ruth with her. Just a year later, the already fractured
family would experience acute misery. The second-youngest brother, Gordon, was killed
on his way home from secondary school in Ireland.

“Gordon was sixteen and had just bought a new motorbike after working all summer,”
Ron explains. “He ended up being pushed off the road by an elderly driver.” The impact
was lethal. “He hit his head severely and ultimately died.”

Just twenty, Ron did his best to support his father through the anguishing decision
to terminate life support for Gordon. They chose to donate his organs, a decision,
they later learned, that saved two people’s lives.

For five years, Ruth and her mother lived in the U.S. and Ron and his brothers remained
in Cork. But growing political unrest and the declining Irish economy forced Ron to
also consider a move to the States. He decided to visit Ruth in Rochester, New York,
where she lived along with their mom. After the two-month visit and with encouragement
from Ruth, Ron decided to make a life in America. In 1978, at twenty-four, Ron returned
to the U.S. on a visa and worked on a farm west of Rochester managing cattle and restoring
barns. Nine months later, he returned to Ireland to get his relocation papers in order.
In May 1980, Ron immigrated to America, returning to the farm to work and live in
a home the landowner offered him. Three years later, Ron’s passion for structural
design led him to enroll in
college at the Boston Architectural Center. Before graduating, he took a job heading
up the computer-aided design group for the New York City Housing Authority.

Ruth spent those same years attending college in Rochester, followed by a position
with a modeling school opening new branches around the country. She then moved overseas
to London to apprentice with a renowned skin care specialist, learning the art of
postoperative cosmetics. By 1986, Ruth had returned to the States and, in a suburb
of Boston, opened a day spa. She would eventually launch her own line of skin care
products. Several years into her spa and salon business, Ruth struck up a friendship
with a client named Paige Hackel. The two immediately became best friends, sharing
a love for gardening, entertaining, and worldwide travel.

In 1988, Ron married his wife, Brigid, whom he’d dated for two years. They first met
when Brigid picked up the phone at a Boston apartment where a party was under way,
hosted by mutual friends.

“I called for directions and she answered the phone,” he says with a laugh, “and we’ve
been on speaking terms ever since.”

Two years into their marriage, in 1990, Ron and Brigid started a family in New Jersey.
Brigid gave birth to a daughter, Monica. Within the first hours of her life, Monica
was battling for it. She’d been born with throat complications that required immediate
surgery and recovery in the neonatal unit.

“I was just praying that my child wasn’t one of the children that was going to die
that night,” says Ron.

The newborn spent three months in intensive care. When Monica finally came home, Brigid
began the arduous process of teaching her baby how to eat and swallow. Feedings could
take two hours. For years, the risk of her aspirating food and liquids was high.

“The care Brigid gave Monica was unbelievable,” Ron says, marveling. “We were always
back and forth to the hospital, and we slept on her bedroom floor with her for two
or three years.”