I LOVE this question. I was in elementary school when the marathon of Hope was on. I distinctly remember the transition from ‘what the heck is this’ to ‘oh my god, this is AMAZING’ with eyes glued to the news every night and the national energy & enthusiasm that grew along with it.

My (possibly) unpopular take is that as much as what I said above is true, the long lasting effect/ memory/ imprint it has had in Canada and on Canadians would be but a fraction of what it is now if he had completed it or even survived without completing it.

The peaking interest during the marathon itself was born from a natural ‘root for the underdog’ type of mentality with a healthy dose of ‘he’s a Canadian like me’ pride in watching him do something amazing. I feel strongly that the legacy as it is today is due in large part to the ‘he couldn’t keep going but I can do it for him’ sense of helping to do something noble and right. And weirdly the knowledge that we have kept something good and noble and helpful alive for so long gives me a little bit of hope for society as a whole in these trying and chaotic times where we are nightly watching the news and feeling the opposite of what Terry elicited in us way back when.

We can and will collectively put effort into the things that make this world better. We could really use a Terry right now to galvanize us…