Terry Fox was lying on his bed in Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster. I believe it was Monday, June 22, 1981.

Terry had been admitted to hospital three days earlier. It was nine months after the one-legged runner from Port Coquitlam, son of a railway worker father and homemaker mother, had been forced by recurring cancer to end his remarkable Marathon of Hope.

I was a reporter at The Columbian daily newspaper, which served the suburbs of Metro Vancouver. Terry had a special place in his heart for our local newspaper because it had supported him from the earliest days of his crazy/incredible dream, when few were paying attention.

The Columbian was writing about Terry before the international media picked up on his vow to run 7,000 kilometres across Canada to raise money for canc

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