Bicycles, Friends, Family, and Loss

"A family is a risky venture

because the greater the love, the

greater the loss....

That's the trade-off.   

But I'll take it all."

Brad Pitt 

 

How many times has my bicycling helped me to cope with loss?  Same with cycling friends?  How often have they picked me up and helped me move forward when I have fallen to my knees?  Sometimes without even knowing it.  And what will I do when I lose it?   When I lose them? How will I cope with that loss?  Monday was just such a ride, and how grateful I was to have riding companions that took my mind off my troubles for a few hours without judging or even commenting on my pensive mood.  How grateful I am for those who have done the same in the past.

In a sense, I have lost someone.  My big sister has been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia recently, and Sunday was the first day I have gotten to see her since the beginning of the Pandemic when, other than her physical handicaps and some intellectual issues which she has had since a car accident fifty years  or so ago, she was fine.  The change since I last saw her was heart wrenching.  And when I returned her to the facility, she  physically curled into the fetal position in her wheel chair.  How I wanted to just pick her  up and bring her home with me, but of course I could not.  How I wanted to comfort her, but I could not.  How I wished she lived closer so that I could check on her more often, but I cannot. 

 

And so I ride to ease the pain of my own inability to ease her suffering and learn to accept again that I am powerless against the ravages that time can bestow upon us. I am powerless over the damage that this Pandemic has caused with its cursed isolation, for unlike me, my sister is, or was, outgoing and gregarious.  And yet again, I am grateful for my bicycle and for the road that accepts my tears as her own.  And I am grateful for those that have kept the tears at bay by their presence and have teased a smile from my lips, even if just for a bit, sometimes  knowingly and sometimes not.  My mom once said that life has a way of kicking you when you are already down and I think she is right, but bicycles and friends have a way of picking me back up.  And so I say thank you to both.    And thank you to my sister for always being my biggest fan.  To have you as a sister, I'll take the trade off.  Family, friends, and bicycles.  Love you sis.