WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — After his wife of more than two decades died in March 2013, George Campbell, 63, was a man adrift.
Both physically and emotionally exhausted, Campbell felt unsure about if he wanted to stay in his Washington Heights home without his wife, Priscilla, or return to his native Scotland.
"After Priscilla passed away, I was asked by friends about what I was going to do for the rest of my life," Campbell said.
“I went through a lot of heartache because, for about two and half years, I had taken care of her. It was quite painful."
But he had made a final vow to his wife, who had been an avid runner and completed the New York City Marathon in 1978.
“A few weeks before she passed away, I said, ‘Priscilla, I’m going to run the marathon for you,” he said.
But he said he struggled to find a path to making his vow a reality until, one morning at church, he found himself reading Psalm 32 verse 8: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you."
"So I left it to God which way I should go. Then a friend of mine, who is a runner, called an hour later and said, 'George you should start running,'" said Campbell who, with the help of friends and the New York Road Runners, is about to run his second New York City Marathon on Nov. 6.
At first, he couldn’t make it to the end of the street.
“I was exhausted,” he said. “My friend said persevere, persevere — so I persevered.”
Since then Campbell, who weighed in at 235 pounds when he began, is now at a lean 152 pounds. He has stopped taking more than a dozen prescription medications for high-cholesterol and pain after changing his diet and making exercise a part of his daily regiment.
And he completed a number of races — from a 5K in Harlem just months after his wife's death to his first NYC Marathon in 2015.
“It just seemed to continue,” he said. “I just finished — last week in the Bronx — my 68th Road Runner [race] since then.”
Campbell said that, while preparing for his first marathon race, he found his wife's old marathon number.
“That just blew my mind,” he said. “I put it on the back of my shirt. I had my original number on the front and I pinned her number on the back of my shirt. I also put her photograph on the back of my shirt.”
This year's 26.2-mile race, which will draw more than 50,000 runners as it winds from Staten Island through Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx before finishing in Central Park, will be Campbell’s 72nd since 2013.
Campbell said the couple met in his native country, Scotland, in 1989 while she was on vacation. He moved to New York City in 1991 and the two got married in 1994.
“The morning she passed away, she looked out the window, she moved her right arm — the only thing she could move — and said, ‘Don’t worry, George,” he said.
“Everything is going to be ok. Everything is going to be wonderful.”
And eventually, Campbell said, it has been.
“I’ve never been depressed,” he said. “Even though my wife passed away.”
