Many thanks to all those who have donated already. As I write I am $20 from the minimum level of donations and $720 from my target. One of the rewards of participating in this ride is that I get to reach out to a great number of family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances who I've met over the years. Its not just wonderful to get donations, it's heart warming to receive replies and encouragement. It helps to hear and share stories with others.
A few days after my last post in May, one of my long-term friends from the UK contacted me. It was great to hear from Simon, it had been a long time since we had last been in touch. He's known me and my family for over 25 years as we initially closely shared our roller-coaster ride of life and then watched each other follow our paths from afar. He confessed that with each post he is concerned that this will be THAT post. Well this isn't that post Simon.
My visit last month was a wonderful opportunity to see my mother and family again while my mother was at home. The highlight from the trip was the trip to the Olympic Park complex in London. The week before we had made a clumsy effort of going out for car ride. With my mother's reduced mobility and our inexperienced efforts, we took nearly an hour to get from inside the house to inside the car and exhausted my mother in the process. We cut short our plans and made an extended loop in the car before returning home to repeat the process in reverse, this time with thankfully less drama. It was an interesting drive though, we got to see some of the meaningful places of my father's childhood, the roads he rode as a teenage cyclist, the hills that tested him and his colleagues, and the houses that he lived in. I was reminded how good we have it in Australia from a cycling point of view, those narrow hedge-lined roads are pretty, and pretty damn dangerous to ride along with the UK's heavy traffic. Despite this shattering experience my mother was adamant that we must go to the Olympic Park complex. After our efforts at the short trip, this looked like an attempt on Everest without oxygen. Still my incredibly organised sister managed to find a vehicle we could hire that could take a wheelchair and came with a ramp, and with that we set off on a day-trip to the Olympic Park. It wasn't easy, but then memorable things seldom are. The trip reminded us, should there ever have been any doubt, of my mother's indomitable will.
My mother was in hospital for a period shortly after my visit and is now amongst very caring nurses at St Christopher's Hospice. She is weaker but still with us. She has daily visits from my father and sister and her Danish relatives and friends, who haven't stopped their wonderful visits and are still planning more to come. A benign and beautiful bunch of Viking raiders if ever there was one.
I'll close with two thoughts. One is from a a TED talk by the philosopher Stephen Cave. In it he discusses the point at which we realise we are mortal and the stories we tell about what happens next. I won't repeat the talk here, you can find it in full on TED,. but his concluding advice resonated with me. Here is how the transcript of his talk ends:
Now, I find it helps to see life as being like a book: Just as a book is bounded by its covers, by beginning and end, so our lives are bounded by birth and death, and even though a book is limited by beginning and end, it can encompass distant landscapes, exotic figures, fantastic adventures. And even though a book is limited by beginning and end, the characters within it know no horizons. They only know the moments that make up their story, even when the book is closed. And so the characters of a book are not afraid of reaching the last page. Long John Silver is not afraid of you finishing your copy of "Treasure Island." And so it should be with us. Imagine the book of your life, its covers, its beginning and end, and your birth and your death. You can only know the moments in between, the moments that make up your life. It makes no sense for you to fear what is outside of those covers, whether before your birth or after your death. And you needn't worry how long the book is, or whether it's a comic strip or an epic. The only thing that matters is that you make it a good storyThe second is from my close Aussie friend Grant whose world-recognised work as a cancer specialist got me on this ride three years ago. Grant and I were talking about some recent media coverage for Peter Mac on an advance in cancer treatment. Grant's response was positive, but as he said, he's tired of small improvements, he wants a big step change. Something that dramatically improves the way we diagnose and treat cancer. I for one hope he gets the help he and his colleagues need to take that step. Your donations can make that happen.
Make sure you make your life a good story.
