Three years ago, Linda Benham watched her daughter Rebecca Chelmick cross the finish line at the Edmonton Marathon.
On Sunday, they crossed it together.
Benham, 65, died in March after a three-year fight with liver disease, but her daughter ran the last stretch of the half-marathon with her mother’s ashes in her arms.
“I just really wish that my mom would’ve been here, but I know that she is,” Chelmick told CTV Edmonton. “I’m just happy that I can fulfill one of her dreams.”
Mother and daughter dreamt of participating in the competition together during long and arduous hospital days as her mother waited for a liver transplant.
But that transplant never came.
Rebecca’s sister, Stacey, was set to save her mother’s life after a long process to become an organ donor, but one week before surgery last November, their mother was diagnosed with a tumor and immediately taken off the transplant list.
The Edmonton Marathon represents an important step in Chelmick’s grieving process – she gets to remember her mother and begin to move on.
“It’s also therapeutic for me,” Chelmick said before the race. “It’s kind of my first step in the healing process.”
After 21 kilometres in two and a half hours, Chelmick was overcome with emotion when she finished the race with her mother’s ashes close to her heart.
“I just kept talking to my mom along the way, giving me that strength to do it,” Chelmick said.
“I’m so happy I was able to do it. This is for her.”
With files from Jeremy Thomson
