Helene Neville

Michael C. Walker

Amish-born, country farmhand; Spirited Journeyman and Life Adventurer; Technologist and Computer Scientist
b. 1994

Falling through the endless blue sky, the rush of wind against his cheeks, Michael Walker finally felt he was living the life he wanted. He’d long craved speed, and here he was, hurtling toward the earth, miles of blissful air between him and the ground. It was an extraordinary leap of freedom for a young man born to a family of strict rules and beliefs. Amish boys don’t get into airplanes. They certainly don’t dive from them. “Going up two miles into the air and then jumping out of the plane was really scary,” he said, “but I took faith that everything would be okay.” It had been only a few years since Walker left everything behind to chase his dreams, and in some ways, he was still in freefall. But he’d never doubted his decision to jump. His fascination with the technology so forbidden by his upbringing had become his calling—“I felt,” he said, “like I couldn’t live without it.” Walker was born in Apple Creek, a small village in northeastern Ohio with a sizable Amish population. His mother died when he was just 11, leaving Walker’s father to raise his four sons and two daughters on his own. The family was part of the Swartzentruber Amish, one of the most conservative and best-known subgroups of Old Order Amish, recognized by their plain dress and strict avoidance of modern technology. It’s their belief that one honors God through a simple life, free from the distractions of signs, symbols and artifacts of the English, or non-Amish, secular world. Walker spent his youth toiling away on the family farm, rising with the sun to milk the cows and feed the horses. He mucked stalls and repaired broken fences. During harvesting season, he could spend 14 hours a day husking and piling corn. The work was mundane and exhausting. Walker yearned for more—something faster, louder. He found himself infatuated with his neighbor’s radio. “It just intrigued me,” he said, “how something that small can make that sound.” Radios, of course, were forbidden in his world. The Swartzentruber Amish avoid not only cars, telephones and computers, but also most electricity and indoor plumbing. They dress in browns and grays and frown on lavish, worldly colors. They stop attending school after the eighth grade. Walker would listen to his father loudly and forcefully proclaim that both higher education and technology were the tools of the devil—distractions and temptations to stop doing less physical labor and less dutiful reverence to the Lord. But Walker couldn’t fight this temptation. He inched his way toward the banned devices until he was able to get one of his own. “A radio was the first thing that I could really get cheap,” he said. “I was able to go to a thrift store and buy it for like $8. It was an old clock. It was like a fortune to me.” Slowly he began to collect his new, taboo treasures, squirreling them away beneath his mattress and bed sheets where his father wouldn’t find them. He purchased a CD player so he could listen to popular music—back then, Katy Perry and Alan Jackson were particular favorites. He saved up to buy a phone. He watched television at a neighbor’s house. He pretended to be Amish until he no longer could. One Saturday, a few months before he turned 18, he told his brothers and sisters he was leaving. That spring day, he stepped away from the farm and into an exciting, unsettling world. It is not unheard of for young Amish men and women to flee their communities. Some subgroups observe a rite of passage called rumspringa, where adolescent misbehavior, including time spent in the English world, is overlooked rather than harshly condemned. While Walker was the first of his siblings to leave, even his father had stepped away from the community as a young man, returning when he found little of interest and substance out there. But for Walker, there would be no turning back. His eyes were opened by the English world. He landed a job working in a large furniture company that employed hundreds of ex-Amish and English workers, and while it was a grind, he was used to that. His new life traded buggies for cars, and he marveled at how he could arrive at his destination in minutes, a far cry from the hours it took to prepare and ride a horse and buggy for a three-mile trip. He felt exhilarated moving at this new speed. Still, he wanted more. His job at the furniture store barely covered the bills, and his options for advancement were limited by his eighth grade education. He decided his next step would be to earn his GED, and “what I noticed is that I felt so fulfilled,” he said. “Up until I started the GED, I was down. I didn’t have a lot of work—sometimes only two days a week, which doesn’t really pay the bills. College felt more doable after I noticed how well it went with the GED.” Furthering his education and working toward a dream job suddenly felt within his grasp. Walker applied for federal student aid at Columbus State Community College but was told that, to move forward, he would need an income statement from his father. In the Amish community, the father-son relationship is a sacred bond. Anything or anyone that gets in the way is viewed as demonic in nature and must be extracted from the family and community. Any violation is met with zero tolerance. No choice, no mercy, no forgiveness—there is no going back. Walker had been the one to sever that bond, and now he had proof of his punishment. He reached out to his father, “and he basically told me that he wouldn’t do it,” he said. “And I shouldn’t bother coming back.” As a boy, Walker often found himself wounded and angry over his father’s intolerance of his interests and curiosities, numbed by the harsh tone and relentless edicts. But the years had softened the impact. In time, he’d grow to take on a more forgiving, even appreciative view of his father’s choices. “I know it sounds really strange to say, but I think it was good he disowned me in the long run,” he said. “That was a big turning point. Even though I was English and he was Amish, I still kind of felt like I owed him for raising me and everything. Him disowning me pretty much threw that out the door. It canceled the debt.” Walker got the loan without his father’s help. He powered through community college. It turned out his Amish education had prepared him for even rigorous college classes. He graduated with an associate degree and enrolled at The Ohio State University, where the young man who was once forbidden to use a radio decided to major in computer information science. He also took an elective course in skydiving because it scared him. The first time Walker got in an airplane, he jumped from it. “I had never actually flown before,” he said. “I didn’t really know how I would feel. I was unsure how I would react. And everything was OK. It was one of the greatest experiences that I had ever had.” In 2020, he graduated from Ohio State, accepted a job as a software developer and was promoted within five months. He rented a small apartment a few miles from his job to save up for his own house—one that, unlike his childhood home, will include electricity and indoor plumbing. The farm is far behind him. Walker’s story is a complicated, difficult one. He had to sacrifice everything he knew to become the man he is today. He’s had to wrestle with the loneliness and isolation that so often accompanies a journey of self-reflection and discovery. And he’s had to come to terms with the principled man whose actions are dictated by the tenants of a strict, rule-bound culture — his father. “I could not treasure what I learned from my father, or who he has been for me, when I was seeing him only from a point of bitterness,” Walker said. “When I changed my lens to a more appreciative stance, to what we had in common and what I have learned from him—even reluctantly— I could begin to recognize his genuine goodness in the midst of our prickly past. Today, I can see a more fully formed, fleshed-out father, not just a narrowly sketched out farmer with a rule book. It’s hard to do all this, but it’s been liberating for me.” If you find yourself in a world where you don’t feel like you belong, think of Michael Walker’s journey. Think of his father’s. Listen to that voice inside you, and make a choice. You can either stay and find your place—or take that terrifying, freeing leap.

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Cancer survivor turn marathoner that ran through all 50 states, from one Cancer-hospital to the next to raise funds and support patients

Did you ever know you needed to do something but didn’t know why? Did you ever push on when others thought it didn’t make sense? Did you ever not know what to do next, but continued anyway?

Take Helene Neville, a grandmother, survivor of multiple bouts of potentially deadly cancer, turned hard-core elite marathoner. Not just any kind of runner. She is one of the first to have run the total perimeter of the United States, followed by all the states within the lower 48 – at 58 years old. Soon after, she completed Hawaii and is on her way to doing the same with Alaska, in the winter, no less. This makes her the first person in recorded history to run the contiguous United States and Hawaii unsupported, 12,976 miles to date!

She was a natural athlete from childhood, but life’s twists put Neville on her own course. When she was a little girl, Neville’s father walked out on the family, leaving a loving, strong-willed Irish American mother to support six children on her own. In one week, her mother was a member of a country club near Philadelphia. The next week, she was a waitress at the same club. Every month, the town social worker from the local family service agency visited to see if her mother would turn her kids over to foster care and sell the house. Neville hid under the dining room table as she listened to the uninvited social worker plead, cajole, and shame her mother into giving up her family. It was the 1960s, and women in this suburban, middle-class neighborhood were not to be primary homeowners, never mind being a single mom, and head of household.

The family was poor. But Neville’s mother was dedicated to three things: A roof over her children’s heads, food on the table, and all six children attending Catholic schools. Moreover, she aimed to protect, feed and educate all of them together as one family, one unit. This singular purpose was clear and non-negotiable. She worked three jobs to make it happen. There were trade-offs that influenced what she could and could not do based on this purpose-led, family-first approach. Despite a non-stop schedule, Neville’s mom watched all of her daughter’s evening high school basketball games. To save a dollar, she watched from the gym lobby until half-time when she was then allowed in for free. She did without so that her kids could receive her three essentials. Purpose had a price, but it freed her mother from distraction or temptation to do less or to be less.

Neville learned this lesson well. Being purposeful mattered if she was going to make a difference in this world. She became a nurse and ended up raising her kids with the mutual support of her ex-husband. All the while challenged with recurring bouts of cancer, and the cycle of chemotherapy, remission, and then more of the same. Neville spent long days and hours just staring at the window from her hospital bed. Pain was a constant, and fear of what would come of her life and her children never left her. Through all of this, she realized that her own health, her very existence, was dependent not simply on her, but also on the nurses that she had grown to love and respect. She begrudgingly reckoned with the fact that she could not do it all herself. Yet, she was determined to give something back to them and to their profession. But what, and for what reason?
“Finding myself on the other side of the bed as a patient, I just wanted to give back to the profession that gives so much and we kind of exist on the front lines of life,” said Neville. “It’s a noble profession and we don’t get acknowledged very well or much.”

Once vertical, she realized recovery meant something more than leaving her physical ailments behind. She had changed somehow. Struggling with determining what was important to her and what she would do, first meant she needed to accept that she was vulnerable. That is, to embrace a not-knowing state. She thought most people had structure to their life, regular jobs, daily routines, and predictable plans. Neville wondered, if she could do something different, radically different, outside the box, for the nurses she so loved, that resonated with her inner voice. Could she let go of ‘playing safe,’ and do something a bit on the edge, where risk met opportunity? It was scary yet exciting.

This took a certain courage to have faith in the unknown self. She contemplated multiple ways that she could support nurses. There were pretend choices, such as making a small donation to the hospital, or half-way, play-it-safe choices such as participating in a local 5K charity run for cancer, but Neville chose to be all-in — running from the West-to-East Coast for the first leg of her run of the perimeter of the United States.

Once Neville gave herself to a purpose that was true to her, she realized she could let go of the externalities of meeting expectations and interests that were either not hers or not central to her best and future self. Easier said than done. How would she start? She had little money.

At first, her cross-country charity run was a multi-state trek running from one southern hospital to the next to share her cancer recovery stories with other patients. As Neville began, others got excited about her message and mission to bring hope to the hopeless. Donors stepped up and started to support her. It was inspiring about this cancer victim turned cheerleader, genuinely wanting to get up close with those needing encouragement and a potential path forward from someone who lived the same nightmare.

Others, in the health care community and beyond, started to help. They found places for Neville to stay at night and food. They set up hospital talks and radio spots in towns where she was running. Before she knew it, the raw power of purpose in action generated support from people and places she least expected. Neville slept on couches and was served meals from those who sometimes had little to offer – yet were moved by her driven spirit to serve those in pain.

We do not always know the finish at the beginning, nor the risks involved until the dance between holding-on and letting-go begins. Sometimes, having a purpose that matters means giving up something else that is desirable. So, what is important? The safety of staying with the known can be most attractive while the unknown may be less than tolerable. The quiet courage it takes to serve an authentic purpose may not be visible, but it results in precision, utility and impact for the long run. For Neville, instead of mailing it in she chose the most of challenging of options and completed the southern perimeter run, eight states, in only 93 days.

The run was something larger than herself. The emerging planning team, the recovery wagon, the run itself, the talks and media at different hospitals and schools Neville spoke at along the road, all involved hundreds of supporters gaining inspiration and guidance along the way. This was not just a guiding coalition or community, it was purpose driven.

The first 100 days or so of running ultimately only her first leg, Ocean Beach, CA to Atlantic Beach, FL. In Florida, she decided she needed to go farther after her brother Anthony died. She carried his ashes in an urn while running and completed the second of four legs between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Tijuana, Mexico. The other legs became more intentional and gained momentum as she completed a 9,713-mile perimeter run, coast-to-coast and north-to-south.

Along her route, Neville fulfilled her own purpose, but she also gave others a chance to become a part of her mission. “Everybody wants to be a part of something bigger than them. They just want to be included, like a team,” she said. “One world, one team.”

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