To my family and friends,
This will be my sixth year to ride this ride. It seems I am brought a new challenge each year and I have grown to embrace the change. I now see change as a positive thing, something that once used to scare me terribly.
Change, flat out, means uncertainty. As a parent of a child diagnosed with cancer, that is all we know. Uncertainty- every moment is one of uncertainty. From the moment you hear those words “your child has cancer” your world is vacant of time , space, air, reality, and everything you know from that moment on becomes unknown.
Since Daniel’s diagnosis day on June 6, 2014 and even the months leading up to it to today, almost 10 years later, I still live with uncertainties that are unsettling to my core. Even though Daniel is perfectly healthy, this is the reality of my life on the daily.
This is the pure, awful truth. Yes I am grateful for Daniel’s survival, and his excellent health and thriving life, but I live with the concerns of late effects of treatment and reoccurrence for him and all the uncertainty that come with the what ifs. This is the reality of it all. It is more than the typical Mother worries.
But thank goodness life for us goes on and what I personally choose to do to give thanks for his life is I continue to learn and give back to the fight. With the money I raise, hopefully our Researchers can learn to find better treatments that are more effective and easier on the body. Yes, I am hopeful for a cure, of course, but I hope that families to come, will not have to endure, the loss of their children or the pain of the fight. I hope they find less harsh long term effects of the awful treatment so that our kids can have longer more normal lives and families can remain intact.
It continues to remain so deeply personal to me especially since many friends are still losing their children and I still cannot understand the full extent of their pain.
In these past 10 years, I have met, probably the best people in my life who have given me the most nourishing relationships for which I am grateful. I have become a healthier better person, for which I am thankful, but it has come at a price any of us caregivers would say, we would trade with our children in a heartbeat and would not wish this agony on our worst enemy.
Your dollars give me my motivation to move through a day. I take you with me on my ride, along with Martha who is permanently imprinted on my skin. long with Will who has moved in next-door in my heart, With Koby who is a constant song and drumbeat I hear in my head playing on repeat and Trevor, who is a smile that lights the way when it gets dark.
So as I push my way up the mountains of the Courage Classic for another time and I need your help to conquer the beast once again. I feel it is my personal responsibility to do better than last year in my efforts in training and riding and most of all fundraising. Help me and help my team meet our goal of $7,000,000 this year. I know you can help.
Pain-Pedal-Push-Passion
With Gratitude,
Nadine
