Julia’s Run for Children: Remembering Julia Rusinek
Written by Mike Kavey Friday, 09 April 2010 00:00
Almost 20 years ago, late in a summer afternoon at Camp Quinebarge in New Hampshire, Julia Rusinek and I sneaked off to an unsupervised spot along the shore of Lake Kanasatka and jumped, fully clothed, into the water. Briefly free from the watchful glare of camp counselors, we splashed about in our T-shirts and shorts, giggling and reveling in our silliness and spontaneity. We kicked off our wet shoes and let the sand and mud squish between our toes. We dove under water, attempted hand stands and made funny faces until the urge to laugh brought us up gasping for air. Then we crept back to our cabins – somehow unobserved – with dirty feet and disheveled hair, still smiling and dripping wet.
I treasure this memory, as it captures much of what I loved and admired in Julia – her free spirit, her enthusiasm, her laughter and her love of nature. Julia literally leapt at the chance to try something new, and she embraced the world with all of its messiness and imperfections. If she could share a special moment with friends, she didn’t care if her clothes got soaked, if dirt got under her nails or if mosquitoes ravaged her legs. She would stomp happily through the mud, hike the steepest mountain trails, swim in the coldest brook water, and run in the heaviest rain. An inspiration to me and other friends, she deepened our appreciation of both the time we spent together and the beauty we could find in the natural world surrounding us.
While adventures like these were plentiful at Camp Q, it was more of a challenge to find extended time for quiet and private conversation, at least for a boy and girl, who were prohibited from even approaching each other’s cabins. But Julia and I always found a way to break free from the crowds and distractions. During one summer, we signed up for “boat time” at 10 a.m., and spent almost an hour every weekday morning on a paddle boat out on the lake. Paddle-boating is not exactly strenuous activity, and that was precisely the point. We spent those hours on the water relaxing, chatting and nurturing our friendship; we talked about everything from movies and music to our greatest hopes and deepest fears. As always, Julia’s generosity and selflessness shined through, as she took an intense interest in the details of my life, helping me work through my fears and doubts, building my confidence, and showing me what it meant truly to listen.
It is no exaggeration to say that even Julia’s laughter was enlightening. Here again, she taught by example. In the summers when I first got to know her in New Hampshire, I was quite the nervous young teenager. Fearing rejection and tangled up in a web of insecurities, I had never really had the courage or capacity to laugh at myself or my own shortcomings. Julia, on the other hand, had an endearing ability to poke fun at herself, and she often laughed the hardest when recounting some of her own silliest gaffes. Her lighthearted humility amazed me, and helped shake me free from my web of adolescent anxiety. After all, if this brilliant, worldly and beautiful friend whom I admired so deeply could not only admit freely to her mistakes, but roll on the floor laughing about them, there was no reason I shouldn’t try to liberate myself with some laughter as well.
Our summers at Camp Quinebarge came to end early in high school, but Julia remained a devoted friend in the years afterward, through phone calls, visits and countless letters, and then as a classmate in college. A true friend in every sense, she showed genuine joy when I found success in life, and heartfelt concern when I struggled.
It would be impossible, of course, to describe here all of the ways that Julia enriched my life and the lives of so many others – including, through her work for children’s causes, the lives of many people she barely knew or did not know at all. This essay would not be complete, however, unless I shared a poetic slice of wisdom that Julia passed along to me when we were both just 15. In a letter she gave me on the last day of camp during our very last summer at Quinebarge, she included a quote from a William Wordsworth poem, authored almost two hundred years earlier. It read:
“Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.”
Julia knew when she shared these words that it would be difficult never to grieve. But she also knew that we could and should hold tight to our fondest memories, drawing strength from them as we moved forward in life, even if the cherished moment in which we lived them would not return.
Joining Julia’s Run for Children in New Haven every spring helps me live up to that aspiration, and I always think about the Wordsworth poem as I run. While I sometimes can’t help but cry, I also find new strength every year in Julia’s friends and family, and in the memories we continue to share about the splendorous, glorious moments that we are so fortunate to have spent with Julia.
The 11th Julia’s Run for Children will take place at Yale University on April 18, 2010. For information go to www.juliarun.org The organizers would like to thank Great Neck’s Bagel Hut for having donated delicious bagels and muffins to all of the past Runs.
