Some of my most vivid memories are also among my most painful. In 2006, my mother was battling breast cancer, and I remember the particular helplessness that comes with watching someone you love fight something you cannot fix. When I found out about the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Walk, I signed up to walk 20 miles a day for three days. It was the only thing I could think to do. I knew my effort wouldn’t cure her cancer, but at the very least, I could show her how much I loved her.
What many people don’t realize about those walks is that you don’t just show up and start walking. First, you raise money — a significant amount of it. I threw myself into that part, and people responded generously. I’d like to think I was persuasive, but the truth is that many of them gave because they loved my mother, too. She was the closest thing to a saint I’ve met on this Earth, and apparently, many others felt the same way. By the time it was over, we had raised more than $10,000. Before my shoes ever hit the pavement for that weekend, they already carried the weight of that generosity.
The other thing smart walkers do is train. It’s easy to think, “This is just walking,” but 20 miles a day for three days will humble you quickly. I trained for several months. Early Saturday mornings, I would lace up and head toward downtown Atlanta, walking mile after mile as the city slowly woke up around me. The pavement felt different at mile fifteen than it did at mile one. My calves burned. Blisters became familiar companions. But week after week, I kept walking so that when October rolled around, I would be ready.
Early in my training, I knew I needed a solid pair of shoes. I’m a notorious bargain hunter, so I went looking for something comfortable that wouldn’t break the bank. I came home with a pair of orange and blue Mizunos that were surprisingly comfortable from the start. Every Saturday, I laced up those same shoes. I never rotated them out, even when someone suggested I probably should. They had molded to my feet, and somewhere along the way, I convinced myself they were part of the mission. I wasn’t switching.
When the weekend finally arrived, those orange and blue shoes carried me through every mile of the three-day walk. They were on my feet when we made the final approach into Piedmont Park. The crowd was thick, pink shirts everywhere, survivors walking strong. Exhaustion and pride wrestled inside me as we crossed the finish. At the end, many of us lifted one shoe into the air in tribute to the cancer survivors who had walked with us. My arm trembled from fatigue as I held mine high.
Those shoes were still on my feet when the picture was taken of my mother and me that day. She was smiling. So was I. It’s been more than seventeen years, and I can still see those scuffed toes and faded colors in my mind. I wish I still had them.
Mom eventually lost her battle with cancer, and we lost it with her. But for those three days, I felt like a knight riding — or walking — into battle on her behalf. Those orange and blue shoes carried me through one of the hardest seasons of my life. They didn’t save her. But they helped me stand beside her, step for step, in the only way I knew how.
Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
