I've been doing the Ride for 12 years now. Each year, I start Ride season terribly sad - riding has been my anger management after the loss of my dad to lung cancer in 2001, my mom to liver cancer in 2012, and my sister's diagnosis in 2021. The losses have increased year over year since I've started - I've lost aunts and uncles and loved ones, and this year has been no different.
I have the incredible good fortune to be supported by my loved ones and friends in this endeavor I started in 2013 - the year after I lost my mom. In each year since then, I've written the names of my loved ones on my legs, with the names of the loved ones of my donors as a way to keep me motivated when I'm just not able to muster the strength to keep going.
As the years have passed, in many respects, the riding has gotten easier. But the weight of each one of those names and each of their personal stories that I hear when donations are made in their honor weigh heavily on me. . . until Ride Day.
On Ride Day - all of those angels, all of those loved ones who are still fighting make those miles fly by, as though they know their support helps me do what I can to make this disease stop taking people away from me. When my head hangs low, whether because I'm tired, or sad, or angry - those names keep me pedaling.
I write Mom and Dad, and Maggie, Bane, and Snowball (my fur children also lost to this awful disease) on my legs. I wear my sister's name on my left arm, and a dear friend on my right. This year, I'll carry my mother-in-law's name as she lost her short fight in late February. And on my calf, the two long lines of names you give me when you donate to my Ride.
This is my 12th Ride, and my 9th as team captain for Team Forever Young. Each donation brings us one day closer to a day when I won't need to add anymore names on my leg.
Please consider donating to this year's Ride. The funds are needed more than ever. Thank you in advance.