Unprepared, Inspired, and Bananas

As many of you know, I lost a dear friend, Joanne, this past May to a brain tumor.  She was an amazing woman, and fought this terrible disease with such grace and humor. (Miss you, Jo!)

While she was sick, I got involved in various fundraising activities for the Brain Tumor Society.  I had noticed that there was a Brain Tumor bike ride in Palo Alto this October.  Back in January, I had told Joanne that I would be doing this ride and was looking forward to telling her all about it.  At the time, I never expected to not be able to tell her all about it.

Fast forward to September when life was crazy -- work insanity, getting sick, going on vacation, etc.  My friends, Eileen and Diana, remind me that we had planned to do this ride in October.  I hadn't been in my bike in months, generally was feeling out of sorts in life, was weeks behind on work.  But we rally and get up at the crack of dawn to drive down to Palo Alto scrambling a bit to get there. Upon arriving, we learn that in order to participate in the ride, you have to fundraise for the Brain Tumor Society.  I certainly don't mind doing that, but none of us knew we had to.  Oops.  So we work through all that paperwork and finally get on our bikes about 20 minutes after the event started.

As we are riding out, a man bikes up to us and says, "Oh good, you're late, too.  Can I ride with you?"  Enter our inspiration for the ride:  Sam.  We learn Sam flew in from Chicago by himself to do the ride. He lost his wife to a brain tumor last year, and was riding in her honor.  He was also scoping out the event because he wants to start a similar ride in Chicago to raise funds for research.

Sam turned out to be an amazingly resilient and inspiring man.  The events leading up to and during the ride would have been enough to reduce me to tears: His cycle buddies couldn't join him, so he flew out to SF by himself.  He had a car accident on the way to the airport in Chicago.  TSA gave him a load of trouble about his bike.  He had a flat when he arrived to the ride and had the bike tech folks help him out.  That resulted in a flat tire before the ride, which was why he was late starting.  7 miles in, he gets another flat.  Super nice SAG guy, Steve, spends 30 minutes with us trying to get the flat fixed.  Then he has to climb some hills --- he's from Chicago, where it is flat. Not sure he liked that part of the ride.  Then at the first rest stop, he rolls in with a bloody knee, having fallen off his bike clipping out.   And at the remaining 3 rest stops, everyone reminds us that we were the very last people to finish the ride.  By the time we get back to the finish, they have removed all of the food, closed down the event, are popping all of the balloons to the finish line.  Not exactly the most glamorous finish.  But Sam had a smile on his face and some great conversations the whole ride.  Thank you, Sam!

This past year, I also learned that my friend Fred's brother, Scott, was also diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Scott is going though treatments right now.  His positive attitude has be so inspiring.  So throughout this ride, I felt so lucky -- lucky to have had Joanne in my life in the past, to continue to hear about Scott's amazing energy, to have Sam and my friends by my side, and lucky to have the chance to bring them all along with me on the ride.

And the best part of the ride was that since there was nothing left at the finish and they were tossing things away, they gave us each a bunch of bananas.  This might actually be the best finishers prize I've ever gotten at a race.  Way better than a medal or a t-shirt.

Anyhoo, now I'm doing what I should have done several months ago -- ask anyone if they might help me raise funds for the Brain Tumor Society in celebration of Joanne and Scott.  Any amount would be most appreciated!!

You can make a tax-deductible donation here.

http://www.braintumorcommunity.org/site/TR/Events/BTR-SV?px=2904268&pg=personal&fr_id=1691

Many many thanks, friends!!