Sam Budd is running the 2019 London Marathon!
Samuel Budd is raising money for Mind
In memory of Katie June Budd
Story
Thanks for taking the time to visit my Just Giving page. I’ve had a few over the past year or so - and for good reason - as I’ve been working hard to raise money for MIND, the mental health charity. Depending on how next April goes, however, this may be the last for a while...
It is a little different this time, though, as I’m undertaking the big one.... The London Marathon! (Insert the usual “Anyone that knows me knows how hard I will find it” quote here - but wouldn’t anyone?!) It’s definitely not that natural to be running 26.2 miles, but everyone has a reason for undertaking such a feat and here’s mine.
On December 30th 2016, four days before her 41st birthday, my older sister Katie June Budd lost her battle with cancer. The awful and malevolent disease had spread through her entire body by the time she had passed away. Anyone who has been affected by cancer within their family or friends knows how devastating and completely unjust it can be. But, in my opinion, what killed my sister actually began 15 years earlier.
In the 1970s Katie was adopted into our family, at around a year old. At that time my parents had to fight tooth and nail to have her, being that she was a black baby and the Budds, at least until then, had been a white family. Thankfully though, they succeeded and raised Katie into a beautiful, excitable, caring and incredibly free willed being. My brother Joe was also adopted a few years later and so my parents had a complete family - until I came along, anyway.
For years Katie lived an amazing life; representing Great Britain in athletics, appearing on ITV’s classic Saturday night show ‘Gladiators’ before becoming a successful personal trainer and travelling the world in the process. My parents couldn’t be prouder and as a much younger brother I looked up to her an incredible amount.
In her mid to late twenties, Katie began smoking marijuana, which was to be the start of her ongoing struggles with mental health. The drug triggered a form of schizophrenia that had been lying dormant since her birth and, despite numerous happy moments and periods of normality in the ensuing years, that would prove to be the beginning of the end for her. Perhaps we didn’t know that or want to think that at the beginning, but looking back at particular moments during that time it was never going to get better - despite what you keep telling yourself.
Katie’s problems had worsened so much by the last few years of her life that she wouldn’t see my parents. She would occasionally see me or my brother, but would often sit silenced and gazing. I like to think that she understood whatever it was that I was telling her at the time, that it was likely she didn’t know the right words to say back to me. It may well have been that she was completely bored by me prattling on about myself. I guess we’ll never know.
Eventually, though, my sister shut everyone out. She gave up on looking after herself, turning everyone and everything away. For both Katie and our family, the cancer became the final piece of what had become a painful, exhausting and heart breaking puzzle; one that we - no more so than my Mum and Dad - had hoped to solve, but to no avail.
I didn’t see her for three years before my Mum phoned to tell me she had died. It was devastating at the time, but I think it’s only as I get older, with more life experience, that the gravitas and enormity of losing a sibling dawns on me.
And so in the last couple of years, I guess my way of dealing with Katie’s death has been to challenge myself in ways that I know she would’ve been proud. Or thought was really “cool” or “wicked”. And to be able to raise money for a charity such as MIND, who have the ability to help thousands of people in similar, less or worse situations than Katie, is something I feel very lucky to do.
Nothing comes bigger than the London Marathon. (Ok, I know there are ultra marathons and triathlons etc etc). But it has to be up there with one of the most iconic yet difficult experiences that any member of the public can undertake. And everyone has the ability to run it for their own cause, charity or belief. I’m overjoyed to be given the opportunity to take part. And I know for a fact that if my sister were here, she would be running every single step with me. Hopefully, somewhere, she will be.
Thank you to everybody who took the time to read this and even more so if you feel compelled to donate. Wish me luck! X
It is a little different this time, though, as I’m undertaking the big one.... The London Marathon! (Insert the usual “Anyone that knows me knows how hard I will find it” quote here - but wouldn’t anyone?!) It’s definitely not that natural to be running 26.2 miles, but everyone has a reason for undertaking such a feat and here’s mine.
On December 30th 2016, four days before her 41st birthday, my older sister Katie June Budd lost her battle with cancer. The awful and malevolent disease had spread through her entire body by the time she had passed away. Anyone who has been affected by cancer within their family or friends knows how devastating and completely unjust it can be. But, in my opinion, what killed my sister actually began 15 years earlier.
In the 1970s Katie was adopted into our family, at around a year old. At that time my parents had to fight tooth and nail to have her, being that she was a black baby and the Budds, at least until then, had been a white family. Thankfully though, they succeeded and raised Katie into a beautiful, excitable, caring and incredibly free willed being. My brother Joe was also adopted a few years later and so my parents had a complete family - until I came along, anyway.
For years Katie lived an amazing life; representing Great Britain in athletics, appearing on ITV’s classic Saturday night show ‘Gladiators’ before becoming a successful personal trainer and travelling the world in the process. My parents couldn’t be prouder and as a much younger brother I looked up to her an incredible amount.
In her mid to late twenties, Katie began smoking marijuana, which was to be the start of her ongoing struggles with mental health. The drug triggered a form of schizophrenia that had been lying dormant since her birth and, despite numerous happy moments and periods of normality in the ensuing years, that would prove to be the beginning of the end for her. Perhaps we didn’t know that or want to think that at the beginning, but looking back at particular moments during that time it was never going to get better - despite what you keep telling yourself.
Katie’s problems had worsened so much by the last few years of her life that she wouldn’t see my parents. She would occasionally see me or my brother, but would often sit silenced and gazing. I like to think that she understood whatever it was that I was telling her at the time, that it was likely she didn’t know the right words to say back to me. It may well have been that she was completely bored by me prattling on about myself. I guess we’ll never know.
Eventually, though, my sister shut everyone out. She gave up on looking after herself, turning everyone and everything away. For both Katie and our family, the cancer became the final piece of what had become a painful, exhausting and heart breaking puzzle; one that we - no more so than my Mum and Dad - had hoped to solve, but to no avail.
I didn’t see her for three years before my Mum phoned to tell me she had died. It was devastating at the time, but I think it’s only as I get older, with more life experience, that the gravitas and enormity of losing a sibling dawns on me.
And so in the last couple of years, I guess my way of dealing with Katie’s death has been to challenge myself in ways that I know she would’ve been proud. Or thought was really “cool” or “wicked”. And to be able to raise money for a charity such as MIND, who have the ability to help thousands of people in similar, less or worse situations than Katie, is something I feel very lucky to do.
Nothing comes bigger than the London Marathon. (Ok, I know there are ultra marathons and triathlons etc etc). But it has to be up there with one of the most iconic yet difficult experiences that any member of the public can undertake. And everyone has the ability to run it for their own cause, charity or belief. I’m overjoyed to be given the opportunity to take part. And I know for a fact that if my sister were here, she would be running every single step with me. Hopefully, somewhere, she will be.
Thank you to everybody who took the time to read this and even more so if you feel compelled to donate. Wish me luck! X