I was pretty humbled when I read this e-mail I received from our friend (and Dan’s coworker) Barbara. She wrote:
I’ve already made Dan listen to my recap, so now I’ll tell you: The ride was great! We had a rain delay Saturday morning, so it was a long day of riding. We pulled in to MSU at close to 5:30 p.m. But the weather on Sunday was perfect! Everything went well, all the riders and volunteers were so friendly and wonderful. There were about 750 riders. …
Barbara was telling me about her adventures in this year’s two-day Bike MS 150, Mid Michigan Great Lakes Breakaway on July 11. I was stuck by the irony that I can’t ride a bike and she’s riding a ridiculously long distance (yes, that was 150 miles ridden over two days!) to raise money to fight MS. And to think that she was doing this to support the fight against our disease.
Going into work at Central Michigan University the Monday morning following the bike ride, I told Barbara that Jennifer and I had been thinking about her the entire weekend. It all started when a violent crack of thunder woke us up at 6 in the morning, to which we thought, “And Barbara’s going for a 75-mile bike ride today?”
I anxiously asked her how everything went. As expected, Barbara was a champion. I stood there in her office doorway captivated by her stories about everything from the rain-delayed start to the rush of riding down the hills at nearly 30 miles per hour. But the image that sticks in my mind most is of Barbara, with thunder rumbling in the distance, loading her bike into her truck at 5 in the morning to make her way down to the start of the race in Linden some two hours away. All this just to ride 150 miles to fight MS. I, like Jennifer, am humbled by Barbara’s efforts.
We’re overwhelmed by the support, commitment and generosity Dan and I receive from our friends and family in dealing with this disease. It’s proof that we’re not facing this disease alone.