a cherished moment...kent and i participated in the first ride in 2001. after leaving columbia mall and in the midst of hundreds of bikes, an overwhelming feeling of emotion hit me. tears rolled down my eyes for kent's first wife who lost her battle to breast cancer and for all the women in our lives. it was amazing to see bikes as far as my eyes could see in front of us and behind us!
now for my hilarius memory...last year at fsk. it was my first year in charge of distributions of premiums. i was working the lines of awaiting participants and trying to keep the crowd entertained. i was armed with squirt guns, pink prizes and hawaiian flower leis. one of the guys i asked "have you been leid today?" was the preacher who was going to do the sunday morning service the next day. good catholic girl gone bad...i leid one on him (the hawaiian flower lei, that is) and he placed a lovely wooden cross on a string on me. i have that cross hanging on the driver seat of my car. we shared a few moments of his beliefs and my beliefs...you just never know who you're going to meet on the ride!

June 2nd, 1985, my Dad passed away at 49 yrs of age from malinoma. At age 29, I became angry, bitter and extremely depressed. For years, I carried around the bitterness and asked, "Why my Dad?", "Why so young?". But not once did I try to work towards a cure. It wasn't until February, 2007 that the Director on my job was struck with breast cancer. Anne and I are the exact same age making it more real to me. Although Anne went through not only the psychological stresses, she battled the physical side effects of chemo and radiation. Not once did she come to work without a smile on her face. Oh there were days that she would be on her last leg, but she battled on. Anne completed her treatments on December 31, 2007. Just in time to celebrate the New Year. Now, 3 years later, Anne is involved with "Strength and Courage". She is extremely active with various hospitals, developing a website, giving "brown bag lunches" where she speaks on breast cancer and survivorship. The website for survivorship information is: www.strengthandcourage.net . Anne inspired me to take part in Ride Across Maryland and to fight this horrible disease...you CAN fight it with the RIGHT attitude!!!

One of my biggest fears in life is cancer. Both my paternal grandmother and aunt lost their battles to cancer,having been in remission for many year, and then in the 90s my dad was found to have prostrete cancer. the treatments played their toll on my dad aand in 1999 we lost him. Such a terrible disease, can bring fear to all just as you hear the word, please use this money, find a cure, let us die of old age........