WHY I RIDE

“You know there’s no speed limit in the left lane,” Grammie said with a slender smile. We zip by the other cars in her little white sedan, one...by one...by one…

Grammie knew how to buck the mores of her day. While her beauty, and the heartbreak it brought to many small-town youths were indisputable, her vibrance toward life shone through her aging years. Her intentionality shone through her every expression.

But she lost her hair. Slowly at first, then all of a sudden. It fell indiscriminately; it fell without realizing that each little curl which withered away was once the focal point of my newborn eyes. Simultaneously, her graceful movements slowed, until she moved very little at all.

But as she lost her hair, she would proffer a cock-eyed smile to me, just before revelling with joy for her new wig. Grammie had cancer, but she contained multitudes of experience, expression, and humanity. And I couldn’t tell you about her cancer before you learned a little about that, because cancer—because pain—never could define her.

I ride for Grammie. I ride for my relatives who've narrowly missed cancer's most final consequence; I ride for the others who forever rest because of it. I ride for a future where all of our family's' possibilities, plans, and stories are no longer at cancer's mercy.