A Promise Kept

On Saturday, September 12, 2021, I kept a promise I made several years ago.

I woke up early, about 6:00am, and quietly got ready, trying not to wake my sleeping wife. Contacts, bandana, bib. No wallet, just phone, ID, MetroCard, and what I was wearing. I had ordered a cab the night before to pick me up at 7:00am, and because I always over-plan this sort of thing, I was ready and downstairs about twenty minutes early. I anxiously waited outside, pacing up and down the block in the crisp Queens air. It was beginning to feel like autumn, and as the temperatures slowly drop between September and November, I normally settle into a contentedness driven primarily by not having to sweat all day, every day.

But this morning, I was sweaty and my stomach was in knots. I jogged short bursts--twenty to thirty yards--and stretched, trying to keep my mind off of the morning's event. My taxi arrived at 6:57, and I flagged it down, climbing into the backseat as the driver aired his grievances about the leadership of both New York City and the New York Jets. I mumbled my noncommittal agreement and wondered why I had gone out of my way to do this.

Of course, traffic was a nightmare (7:05am on a Saturday morning, go figure), and streets were blocked off. I should have anticipated this, but nevertheless, I asked the driver to drop me off a couple of blocks away from my destination: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was not there to inspect the Picassos or wile away the time in the company of Degas's ballerinas. The Met was merely the marker, the milestone. The Starting Line of the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile occupied the whole street, parallel with The Met's south wall.

I had checked in for the race two nights before at the New York Road Runners' Run Center near Columbus Circle. I had stood in line for about twenty minutes with a few dozen skinny people who looked, for lack of a better descriptor, fast. Most of them were in workout gear and appeared to have run there. I, having left work downtown and gotten on a train, was wearing the slacks and boots I wore to the office, with a button-down shirt. I outweighed pretty much everyone there by at least forty pounds, and I felt as out-of-place as I can recall having ever felt. In a fit of pathetic sympathy, it rained while I waited on the sidewalk. Nevertheless, I got my numbered bib (D6608), my race shirt (Extra Large, which was especially humbling because the volunteer had to go find the XL box), and met my wife downtown for a cocktail with her sorority alumni group. (For what it's worth, the cocktail bar was excellent. Check it out if you're in the neighborhood: Mr. Purple, on the rooftop of Hotel Indigo Lower East Side.)

As I walked west on East 81st Street, my disgruntled sports fan-cum-taxi driver behind me, I saw the starting corral, the administrative tents, and the hundreds of people stretching, jogging, and excitedly talking about the race. I was overcome with wave after wave of conflicting emotion. I was excited to race again. I was invigorated by the energy of the event. I was terrified that I wouldn't finish, since I hadn't run a race since February of 2011, and in the interim, I'd had two knee surgeries and gained about fifty pounds. I was proud to have signed up and showed up to run. I was anxious, self-loathing, and sad. I walked off by myself to a corner where I could squat down and let the tears run without having to interact with anyone.

Because I already had my bib and did not need to do anything administrative before the race, I had a long time to wait and warm up. It turns out that my group (35-39, expected pace slower than 8:20/mile) would start at 8:30am. Since I had arrived at 7:15, I walked, and jogged, and stretched, and drank some water, and walked, and jogged, and jogged, and stretched, and jogged, and walked, and stretched. The nervous energy began to accumulate.

The 5th Avenue Mile starts at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and East 80th Street and runs thence twenty blocks--one mile--down to East 60th Street. The Finish Line is mere feet from Augustus Saint-Gaudens's giant, glinting gold statute of William Tecumseh Sherman in Grand Army Plaza, and but a hundred yards or so from the house of the old-line New York social club my wife and I recently joined. From my vantage point at the steps of the Met, it might as well have been in Tijuana.

At 8:25am, I joined the throng of thirtysomethings in the middle of the street. The tears began to run again, which irritated my contacts and felt like lemon juice. I tucked myself into the side of a pack of people who had moments before been discussing their post-race plans, which featured such highlights as "never running another step in my life" and "no, Dana, I said ALL the ice cream." It turns out that this was a strategic error, as they bolted down Fifth Avenue as though they were being chased by some fearsome though unseen force. The starter announced the age group, and the pistol shot rang out sharply. It had begun.

80th Street. I thought for a bit about how I got here. I suffered a "catastrophic" knee injury, in the words of my orthopedist, in May of 2013. I had torn my ACL and my medial meniscus while playing Ultimate Frisbee for Physical Training ("PT") in the Army. I was carried from the field by my boss's boss and the man who would shortly replace her, who just happened to be there visiting in advance of his move. That was the first time I met my mentor, Jay.

79th Street. Jay arrived to take over his new position a few weeks later, right about the time I had surgery to craft a new ACL using tissue from my hamstring and to try to stitch the bucket-handle tear of the meniscus together. Over the next several months, I was unable to put any weight on my left leg whatsoever, and had to keep it in a lock-out brace. My rehabilitation and therapy were excruciating, but I worked through a nascent opioid addiction and made great progress, until I stopped seeing improvements suddenly. Without any discernible explanation for this, we scheduled a follow-up surgery to inspect the knee.

78th Street. It turns out that the hamstring tissue had become untethered, and as a result, my body stopped building a replacement ACL around the autograft and the meniscus had torn further. My range of motion decreased, pain returned, and strength waned. I was defeated. My physical therapist developed a plan to get back to normal function after the second procedure, but explained that the manner in which meniscus repair had failed meant that I would likely have knee pain for the rest of my life.

77th Street. Jay stopped by to check on me almost every day. He invited me to his home to have dinner, or to go with his family on a canoeing trip. He helped me move across town, which is to say that, uninvited and without warning, he just showed up at our house and started grabbing stuff to put in the back of the U-Haul. He grudgingly accepted a slice of pizza in return, and the next day, he brought over a dish of baked ziti and peppers that his lovely wife had prepared for us. We went to baseball games and to Six Flags. We worked together on difficult legal issues and worked out together: he'd take up a position on a stationary bike next to me and churn out miles while I struggled to turn the pedals. He was never dour like I was. He was never stern or disapproving, but always encouraged me to keep working, to listen to my body, and to trust that he'd take care of me with the Army as I went to work getting back into fighting shape.

76th Street. Jay was a big runner. He ran long distances every weekend, it seemed. Ten, fifteen, twenty miles. He ran races. We talked about how much I had loved training for and running the only real race I had completed, the 2011 Tallahassee Half Marathon. After that race, life sort of got in the way for me, and I had never gotten back to running, aside from running in the Army.

75th Street. Jay once asked me why I hadn't raced again, and I made some sort of excuse about being too busy. Jay's response was that if it were important to me, I'd make time for it. But how? I could barely walk. Over time, I got better and I walked without crutches down the aisle for my wedding in September. I eventually jogged a few steps. I excitedly told Jay that the physical therapist was going to put me in a machine to offset my bodyweight so I could re-learn to run without damaging my recovering knee.

74th Street. As my time at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, drew to a close, I worked with Jay to get the next phase of my career figured out. I wanted to go to Europe and do criminal defense work. He made it happen for me, pulling strings with people he knew and calling in favors. He secured a spot for me in Germany, and as he told me about it, he was beaming. I asked him where he'd be going next, since we'd be leaving about the same time. He'd be going to Fort Benning, Georgia, to oversee several criminal defense offices in the region. He mentioned that he had a spot he'd like me to consider taking. It was normally filled by someone with more experience and more rank than I had, but he would love to have me on his team there. That said, he told me that he fought for me to go to Germany and would be able to fill that position otherwise, so I should go to Germany.

73rd Street. I ended up turning down the Germany position and working with Jay for another couple of years. He was at Fort Benning, Georgia, while I was at Fort Rucker, Alabama, just two hours down the road. When I told him I'd take the Fort Rucker position, I thanked him profusely for his help in getting the Germany position and everything else. He shrugged it off, as though to say that this is what family does for each other. He encouraged me to start running more consistently, and I promised him that someday I'd run a race again. Not sign up for and then leisurely walk a 5k, as I would eventually do with my wife on a few occasions. But run.

72nd Street. To this point, the run had been gently sloping downhill, but now it leveled off. The slope was almost undetectable, but when it leveled off, it was noticeable (at least to me). My legs were acutely aware of this and I could feel the familiar burn set in. I downshifted from Slow to Glacial, tried to catch my breath, and looked ahead with trepidation to the steady incline over the next few blocks.

71st Street. I had another surgery while I was at Fort Rucker--this time, I had to have a bilateral septoplasty to repair my severely deviated septum, which had been made worse by a softball injury at Fort Leonard Wood. My wife was away for law school, but I had a friend who lived nearby and was able to drop me off and pick me up on the day of the procedure. He checked on me a couple of times per day and was exceptionally kind. Jay, not to be outdone, drove two hours each way twice to check on me at home. He brought me a home-cooked meal, still warm, and met with my clients in my stead.

70th Street. The road began to rise ahead of me, and again I downshifted, this time from Glacial to Catatonic, and leaned into the slope. My sole focus was finishing without stopping to walk, but I was counting the blocks all the way.

69th Street. During my time at Fort Rucker and Fort Leonard Wood, I struggled with depression, partly because of my knee injury, and partly because I had latent depression that I had been stuffing back down inside for a long time. The Army seems to attract people who adopt this approach to mental health, and although significant improvements have been made, it can still be dangerous to one's career to seek mental health care. Jay actively encouraged me to get the help I needed, and moved mountains to ensure that there were no impediments to my doing just that: he rotated people through my office to cover for me if I had to be out, he worked with commanders to ensure coverage and assisted in rescheduling events as necessary.

68th Street. Fifth Avenue here began to level off, before a short decline, short rise, and a slow downward slope to the finish line. The transitional phase of the race brought to mind my own transition. I left active duty service in the Army in March of 2017. Jay was there to speak well of me and give me an award in recognition of my work. He fought for approval to ensure that I was given the Meritorious Service Medal, which was more than I expected, and helped ease my transition to the Army Reserve by working to get an Alabama National Guard Judge Advocate mobilized to work in my office for a few months. At my farewell ceremony, I hugged Jay and thanked him repeatedly for everything. That was the last time I ever saw him in person.

67th Street. We spoke by phone and text every so often. He would check in and see how I was doing, and I would ask about his family and his exciting new position working at the Pentagon, in the Office of the Judge Advocate General, developing criminal law policy. He had signed up for the 2018 Marine Corps Marathon, and was working to prepare for it.

66th Street. On April 30, 2018, Jay died. He was out for a run and was struck by a motorist, mere blocks from his home in Arlington, Virginia. I found out that afternoon, when a friend and colleague with whom I had worked at Fort Leonard Wood and who had also followed Jay to her next assignment (although she was at another installation), called me in tears. She was barely able to get the words out. When she finally finished telling me what had happened, we sat in stunned silence; the only sounds audible through the phone were each other's cries and sniffs.

65th Street. A memorial was held for Jay a few weeks thereafter, but I was unable to attend. As he was to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, his burial and an attendant service would take place at a later time, September 24, 2018 to be exact. I made plans to be there, no matter what.

64th Street. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary (September 21) in Nashville, and she left Nashville to return to the small town in west-central Tennessee where she worked for a bankruptcy judge, and I got on a plane to fly to Washington. I arrived, bleary-eyed and exhausted from a lack of sleep and hydration, and went immediately to Jay's house, where his family was hosting a reception of sorts for friends and family who were in town for the burial. I hugged his wife and we cried. I reminisced with old friends and colleagues who had similarly been affected by Jay's outsized influence. After an hour or so, I slipped away. I needed to get some rest, but also I needed to see something.

63rd Street. I got in my rental car and drove a few blocks to an intersection which was otherwise unremarkable. I parked and got out, stood in the misting rain, and sobbed. I was standing within feet of where Jay was killed. I felt rage. I wanted the driver to feel what I was feeling and had felt since April. I felt despair at the loss of my mentor, one of the few people who had ever really believed in me. I felt disgust and horror. But mostly, I felt empty.

62nd Street. The next day, I woke up in the tidy but unpleasant AirBnB I had rented, showered, shaved, and put on my Army Service Uniform, better known as the dress blues. I had meticulously prepared the uniform for this, but now one of my pocket buttons was missing. I tore through my luggage and took the room apart, but it was nowhere to be found. I noted the location of a Military Clothing store on Fort Myer-Henderson Hall and went as quickly as I could to get a replacement. I found the store closed, and I was not the only person who was disappointed thereby. Another person there for Jay's burial seemed also to need a button. We spoke briefly, and when I expressed my frustration because I wanted to make sure that I was immaculate for this, she told me that she had worked closely with Jay, and that he had spoken of me. He was proud of me, button or not, she said.

61st Street. The burial took place in Section 12A, in the rain. My shoes, ringed with mud but glistening with a mirror sheen, made a KLACK sound on the sidewalk as I walked with a throng of those who knew and loved Jay. We parked a couple hundred yards from the gravesite (12A/792) and moved en masse toward the little tent erected to cover the family. I was not close enough to hear the words of the chaplain, and my ability to see the burial ceremony in any detail was inhibited by the rain dripping from my eyebrows and the tears flooding down my cheeks. After the ceremony was over, I said goodbye to a few people I had known and silently walked to the car. I don't remember what I thought about as I drove to the airport to fly home. All I remember was an overwhelmingly numbing sadness.

60th Street. I have not been back to Washington, DC or the surrounding area since. It is not because I have decided not to, but because I haven't had a good opportunity yet. When I go (sometime in the early part of 2022), I will stop by and visit with Jay. I'm going to give him an update on what has been going on. I think he'd be proud of my career, and would love the story of my mobilization to Morocco during the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I also think he'd be happy to hear that I just crossed the finish line of the Fifth Avenue Mile. I'll probably leave out the part about being awash in tears, though. And when I go to Washington in 2022, it will be for my admission to the Supreme Court bar, and I plan to leave with two acquisitions: a license to practice law before the highest court in the land, and a tattoo on my leg reading 12A/792.

I kept my promise, Jay. Thanks again. Words cannot express how indebted I am to you.

In honor and loving memory of Jay Louis Thoman, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army.

1974-2018.

We'll take it from here, sir.