I was sorting through a drawer on a Tuesday in March — no races, no mail route until afternoon. An off-season Tuesday, the kind where you clean things you've been ignoring.
Under a stack of old tax forms I found it: a blue ribbon from the 1965 county spelling bee. Third place. I'd forgotten I kept it.
I sat there holding it, and for some reason I thought of the last lap. The last lap of the mile relay, summer of '78.
My twin and I were on the same team for once. We'd never raced together before. He handed me the baton on the final curve, and I ran like I was sixteen again — even though we were both twenty-two, already aging out of the sport.
After we crossed the line, he bent over, gasping, and said, 'We'll never do that again.' He was right. He moved three states away that fall.
I've carried that last lap with me ever since. The ache in my legs, the smell of cinders, the way his voice cracked when he said we were done.
Now I deliver mail forty miles a day, walking the same exurban streets. My twin calls every Sunday. We don't talk about that race anymore.
But I still keep that ribbon in the drawer. It reminds me that some battles are won just by showing up — even for the last lap.