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Vincent Kituku
 

"FREE Buffaloes
in Our Lives"

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NEWS


Toastmasters Magazine Article: Vincent Kituku: Overcoming Life's Buffaloes
Meet Idaho's Latest Exports

Dr. Kituku Elected Grand Marshal of Boise State University Home Coming

The Race for the Cure  |  Year II: Racing for More Than Cure
Racing for the Cure While Praying for Sue  |  The Road to Conquering Robie Creek
Dr. Kituku featured in the Idaho Statesman  |  Claiming Idaho�s Highest Summit
Leading Amateurs to Success  |  Robie Creek Vs Everyone (2006)
When Robie Creek Race Calls, You Participate (2006)   |   Doing Robie Creek as a Non-Kenyan Marathoner   |   What makes the Robie Creek Race Less painful
 

Year II: Racing for More Than Cure


By Dr. Vincent Muli Kituku

"And I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them"

Ezekiel 3:15

"Dad, then why don't we just send the money? That way, we don't have to run." My 8-years old son asked on our way home after Race for the Cure of breast cancer event on May 7, 2005 in Boise, Idaho.

"Son, when we care, we give what we have earned. When we love, we offer that and ourselves. We run, walk or cry with those we love, when they hurt. Our presence and participation in the race is the beginning of the healing process for many. Those who are grieving the life of a loved one, that has been claimed by cancer, know there is someone racing with them."

Later in the day I wondered, "How could I be so deep responding to a third grade student's simple question?" Maybe it was the rain. We braved the rainy morning and ran/walked with about ten thousand people.
 

Vincent Muli Wa Kituku watches
as Partricia Kempthorne hugs his daughter.
Dr. Vincent Muli Wa Kituku watches
as Partricia Kempthorne
(Idaho First Lady) hugs
Lucille Mbinya (Vincent's daughter)

Last year was my first time to participate. I was astonished when I saw people I have known for years and learned that they were survivors. Some dear friends were there for a loved one who was undergoing treatment. Some ran in memory of those who had died. It was then that I learned men also suffer from breast cancer.

After the unexpected awakening, I

promised myself to be back, and this time with a team. My team's name was Blessed Beyond. One member was a survivor of another form of cancer. My whole family, less my daughter in college in another state, was part of the team.

If you have never participated in this Susan Komen-Race for the Cure occasion, my writing will do you no good. There are life experiences that are better pondered in a participant's heart. Think of seeing a woman running and you read the back of her tank-top (message couldn't fit on a placard)--In Memory of my Mom. I miss you. I have survived. I do survive. I will survive.

How do you stay strong when you see a man in his forties running in memory of his mother, aunt and surviving sisters? You see a grandma, with a placard written, "In memory of my daughter," holding her three or four years old granddaughter whose placard reads, "In memory of my Mom." On the grandmother's back there is another line, "Thank God I have survived."

There is an image I am unable to force out of my mind. It�s of a gray haired man who was running, if you can classify limping here and there as running and walking. He seemed to be in great pain. He was there for many women, relatives, friends and colleagues, some had died from cancer and others are either surviving or undergoing chemo.

Cancer, the disease that knows no tribal, racial or religious boundaries, strangely has grouped us into those who have suffered from it and those that have not yet. Those in the not-yet category know a relative or friend in the first group. We are literally fighting a common enemy. An enemy that is attacking mothers, daughters, fathers, neighbors and teachers.

As a child of a uterine cancer survivor, I know what it means to be called by your mother to prepare you on how to take care of your sibling should the enemy have the last word. That moment, when you hear the possible days given for your mother to be alive by doctors, your own days lose their meaning. A part of you dies from a cancer affecting someone else. That's the moment when you could race all night long.

In the race of our loved ones lives, the little we can offer is racing with them and for them. We race with the hope that soon we will see fewer pink T-shirts (survivors color), and if possible a lesser number of placards with the inscription, "In Memory of"

Galatians 6:9, we read, And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall
reap, if we faint not. Next year, by the grace of God, you can count on the Blessed Beyond Team.

Dr. Vincent Muli Kituku can be reached at www.kituku.com or Vincent@kituku.com

 

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(208) 376-8724
E-Mail:
vincent@kituku.com