I heart New Yorkers

New Yorkers have a bad rap. I grew up in Texas where people are generally nice, and polite (to your face) and there is still a strong sense of Southerness in manners and hospitality. Whereas New Yorkers… well, I always heard about how cold and superior they were, how self-involved, how you could be having a heart attack in the middle of the street and no one would so much as glance your way. And for many years I subscribed to this cliché. Until, of course, I met some actual New Yorkers. We have some friends in New York, which we rarely get to see, barely even once a year, oftentimes less than that. And yet, this weekend they showed us how kind, how generous, how altruistic New Yorkers can be. How the fact that we barely see each other doesn’t mean anything when you’re kindred spirits.

But let me start at the beginning, the Husband’s cousin, P, started running marathons a few years back and the first marathon he ran was NY in 2008. He and the husband had often talked about running NY together in 2009 but then we got pregnant with the girl who was due in November and everything got moved back a year. When the husband got sick, P promised him that he would run NY 2010, despite some physical setbacks, and dedicate the effort to him. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like P was going to be able to run, but he’s hardheaded as can be and has a lot of faith in fate so despite a really bad knee he trained and trained and got on the plane to NY. We got P together with our New York friends as he was alone and they all really hit it off (of course they would, they’re all wonderful people, being our friends and all). But by Friday it was obvious that P wasn’t going to be running since he was barely walking. He was massively disappointed and disheartened, cause he had put a lot of faith and heart in this effort, he really wanted to do something physical, tangible to show the husband how much he cared. Throughout the Husband’s illness P constantly cheered him on, saying that conquering Leukemia was like running a marathon, he just had to have faith and keep going and he’d reach the finish line. This is why this marathon was so important to him, and not being able to run it, I guess felt like a big failure to P, like he was letting the husband down.

Now, getting to the point of this post, D, who also likes to run marathons (what is with this marathon lark anyway?) offered to run in P's stead (for the husband). This may seem like a little thing to you, but it was a huge thing for us. We haven’t seen D in years, he was the boyfriend (now husband) of a friend who lived in Milan for only a few months. He had no earthly reason to take a day out of his busy life and run a marathon he had decided not to run for a guy, P, who he had barely just met who was running for a guy he hadn’t seen or talked to in eons, other than the fact that he’s a really nice guy.
So how anyone can say that these people are cold and self-involved, these people who took P in and helped him out, took him to the doctor and watched over him, for no reason other than he’s related to us and they’re our friends, these people who stood out in the cold to cheer D (and vicariously P and the husband) on and take pictures for us, who ran a freaking marathon for us for crying out loud, well all I can say is if that's what you think then you haven’t met a real New Yorker yet.

D running

his shirt says for Alex

P and D

our friends

Thanks guys, you’re the reason why we heart New York.