100 Milestones: The Ride For Missing Children

I'm in the gray in the back. Dad is in the orange/red beside me. (Right)

To warn anyone reading this: When I started this entry it was Friday night, and I'd actually decided on a glass of wine after that day. I was up at 4AM for the ride that morning. So, there's really no telling how any of this will come across.



WOW.



I just don't know how to articulate this post, I'msorryI'msorry.

This weekend was incredible. My feet hurt. My hands hurt. Other things hurt.

100 Miles, on bikes, through the Capital District, with the strongest, fittest, most inspirational people I have absolutely ever had the privilege of knowing. And included in that is my unbreakable father. 100 miles on his bike.

What's more, the ride itself was just beyond anything I could have comprehended. When we got to SUNY Albany's sports center that morning, I was probably as nervous as I have ever been. Mom kept forcing me to eat, it was freezing outside, and everyone involved with the organization was there. I kept rattling off things I was sure I was forgetting to Mom, "What about my helmet, is it tight enough?" "How many wagons are there if bikers get tired and need to ride?" "What if I can't even get to the halfway point?" "What if I forget the words to the National Anthem?" I don't even remember the things she said back, but you know how it goes. Besides, after years of coaching me through pre-audition jitters, she knew the drill. "Eat a banana."

All nerves went out the window during that opening ceremony. Families of people who'd gone missing were either riding with us or volunteering for the day to stand up for theirs. Families got up to talk about what their struggle was like, and how much it meant to them to have this organization. Truly, I cannot imagine the kind of suffering losing a loved one to abduction must be. No word on where they are. No leads. No closure. I had always felt committed to the cause, but hearing these stories lit a fire that I hadn't known before. As we pulled out of Albany, as a team, the entire police force was lined up, hundreds of people, along either side of the road - saluting, and then cheering.

That happened throughout the entire day - at each school we visited, every single student waited outside for us and cheered and held signs and asked us to sign autographs. (On the signs they made, or on their arms and faces). We played games with them and taught them about safety. Then, we hopped back on our bikes to ride down the highways with police escorts for another 30 miles until the next school. I never felt tired once.

By 4:15 that day, we were almost back to where we started, and my Dad and I had ridden beside each other for almost the entire trip. Despite a terrifying moment where my pedals locked up and I had to quickly skid off the road to fix them, neither of us hopped in any of the wagons once, or had any mishaps. In fact, for several hours of the trip (the amount of time we were actually on our bikes that day was about 7 hours), we talked about life. We joked around. I told him about plans I have coming up, and he told me about things he hoped to do next. It was almost like we were in the car going someplace, rather than pedaling at an average pace of about 16-18mph through upstate New York.

I kept thinking, as we went by gorgeous lakes and towns, mountains and planes (and amber waves of graaain...), how many obstacles there were to this goal. Obviously physical ones - being in the right shape to ride up to this many miles, training throughout brutally hot and busy summer weeks, and also having the endurance to keep moving, mile after mile. Then, there were the mental obstacles. Demons with so many faces and masks, showing themselves in the form of fear, doubt, insecurity, shyness, anger... These were the ones that almost claimed the goal. I'm sure this was the case for every person on the ride.

Getting to the end of that day wasn't just about being physically fit; in fact, I'd say that was the smallest aspect. There were milestones all summer that led to that last one. Dad going home from the hospital, with a sling and pain killers. My mother and I starting brand new jobs in August. Tom coming to NYC to decide whether or not he wants to pursue living here. Dad going on his first jog after the crash and then, shortly after, hopping back on his bike. These were all baby steps - seemingly small things that in hindsight were enormous contributors to achieving the one thing I had come to think would be impossible.

I know this could start to sound like a Mr. Roger's moment, but that thinking - that it really just takes a small step in one direction to wind up just a couple months later leading you across a 100-mile finish line - changed me this fall. While I plan to sit back and rest for a few days with my whiskey and my good friends, and just celebrate having gotten there, I'm secretly even more excited for mile-marker 200. Whatever that may be.

Happier than ever, minutes after the end of the Ride!

Just Like Riding A Bike

Last night I slept for 13 hours, and I am sitting here with a huge cup of coffee assuming that helps? I have not been this physically exhausted in a really long time, and it's an amazing feeling.

On almost the exact day, two months later, I hopped on my bike to join the team for the Ride for Missing Children for the first time since Dad's accident for their penultimate, 50-mile training ride. And holy crap. These guys are intense bikers - even on the day of Dad's crash, they continued on, shaken to the core, for the rest of the 25 miles. They are people who have had to stay strong-minded for years to ride in the event, many of them have lost loved ones to abduction and are still trying to find them, and all of them look at these rides as a team event wherein not one athlete is better than the other. I have so much respect and admiration for these people that getting back on the saddle after 2 months was not an option. I had promised myself, my father, and the rest of them that I would. 

I did NOT anticipate that Dad would be joining me.

To preface this, and it's a little gory, so I'm sorry: Dad's injuries were not superficial. For the first 48 hours, none of us slept waiting for the phone to ring and praying he'd pull through the night. He had seizures. He had (has) a dislocated shoulder, broken ribs, and a lacerated ear. He had chips out of his skull, and trouble remembering things - his memory kept resetting (which is a common occurrence with concussions and trauma, but when you're dealing with someone like my father who can remember pretty much anything...). It was terrifying and I know that, even though I said I would get back on my bike for another ride, I had written it off as a possibility. No way was I strong enough to handle the anxiety.

When Dad crashed, I was ahead of him on the road (I'm a new rider this year, so they try to set the pace off of that as a team and make you go up front with the leader). I was at the bottom of what had been a pretty steep decline, probably at about 25-30mph, and something felt reckless about our speed. I heard the crash, and then the cries from the team of "MAN DOWN", and even before turning around I knew it was my Dad. I had no reason to think that, I just did. I saw his friend, John, on the road  just behind me - John had been behind my Dad in the lineup - and saw that he was pretty banged up, but okay. He had crashed into my Dad's bike and gotten thrown forward off of his own. I couldn't see Dad anywhere, and scanned the 20 team members frantically for him until I saw that he was surrounded by 5 or 6 of them, clearly badly injured and unconscious, making horrific noises I will never get out of my memory, about a half mile up the hill. I ditched my bike and ran to him panicked, and to say the ten minutes before we could get him to open his eyes were the longest of my life is an understatement. 

The ambulance ride, trauma center and rest of that day was a blur of trying not to cry and praying he'd come through. I felt like the team made me push through the weak moments when I nearly lost it in front of him. When he had a seizure episode in the hospital, about 3 hours after he'd been brought in, the nurses left me alone with him and I felt utterly lost in my own helplessness, holding his hand and trying to let him know he was fine. Just then, Dan Craven - who leads these rides - walked into the room. He proceeded to tell us about his own bike crashes, and experiences where a teammate had been hurt like this, and how they got back on their bikes. It comforted me in those moments to think about Dad riding again, like nothing had ever happened. Unrealistic, I thought, but it gave me a glimmer of hope as I scanned his war wounds. 

Yesterday, Dad and I rode to the training ride site together at 7am. He had gone out on his bike with Dan, Jim, and a few other guys from the team a few nights before and said he was ready. Now that his main injury is his shoulder, he wanted to get back in the game. Granted, Dad has no memory of the crash at all, but still - my amazement overcame my fears on the ride over. 

Then we started out, and my heart was racing so fast I could feel it in my temples. I was in front, again, because I haven't done a ride for 2 months. I felt my hands shaking on the handlebars. I was wearing the same shorts and helmet I wore the day of the crash (Dad bought them for me before his accident). Dad was behind me in the lineup, just like before, and on the first major decline I felt like I was having some kind of panic attack. I couldn't see Dad, and I clutched my brake for dear life with an irrational certainty that the same thing was going to happen. I started to feel sick, and pulled over on the side of the road after we'd cleared that hill, saying that I thought something was wrong with my bike. 

Jim, who held up the end of the team, let my Dad and everyone else pass me, and said "You'll feel better with your Dad ahead of you." On the last ride, Dad took his fall behind me, and since I can't ride glancing over my shoulder all the time, I was freaking out over my lack of visibility. The rest of the 30 miles were a blur of me feeling out of the game (Even running every day doesn't train for biking like this), staying behind my father and watching in awe as he easily powered up every hill, and took a controlled, steady descent on the way down. Jim, riding beside me most of the time, coached me through everything, "Go into 1, stay in your lower gear, stay upright - you need your lungs, keep your mind strong, riding this kind of thing is 90% mental - you are in shape, you're strong, you can do this!!" He shouted these things to me as I cursed my way up what felt like thousands of hills, and kept telling him I thought my bike was malfunctioning (Basically, I was wimping out by mile 30, haha). He wouldn't let me quit, at some point literally taking one hand and pushing me forward for three solid miles of incline. 

My Dad never took a moment's pause the entire day. To the astonishment of our teammates, he rode the entire 50 miles, smiling, cautious but steady. We celebrated as a team, a family and friends. It was the kind of victory we all felt - even people who weren't on the ride. 

At the end of the day I heard myself say to him "...It's almost like nothing ever happened." And it really was, except I think every one of us is a little bit tougher, and a hell of a lot happier. The ride is in two weeks, and my father, who was bedridden with broken ribs and head trauma to recover from, will be riding in it on the very same bike he crashed on. 

One.

Truthfully, I hesitate to write this post. But, I don't feel like I can post anything in this blog without acknowledging this very important landmark in my life - and, of course, my family's. I can't just go in here and post another subway post. Can't divulge all my plans for fall. Can't start that '10 Favorite Horror Movies' list back over... I'm sure some other person could, but for the purposes of this blog, well - I can't.

This time last year I felt the cruelest of high-to -low crashes I think I've ever felt in my life. Kate had just gotten married on September 1st to Chris, who had become such a fixture in our family that celebrating their marriage just felt like a party. Pshhh, they were already married! We were just looking for a good excuse to get dressed up and eat pulled pork. Still, Chris' vows brought tears to all of our eyes that day. I am a sucker for a good speech, and when he coupled "You are the most beautiful woman in the world" with "...and you got to level 99 of Dr. Robotnic's Mean Bean Machine," (he choked up the most at that part), we all just lost it. Love at its truest!! (No, but really.) I sang. We gossiped. We ate. We jammed with guitars until the sun set... It was, in my memory, the most beautiful day imaginable; I was so happy that night. 

Then, the very next night, we all lost Lynn...And so much of me just can't finish this story openly. Truthfully, as I try, it's similar to describing Dad's bike accident in July, or holding my grandfather's hand on the last day of his life. These are times that can't be captured in writing - especially not blogs. People, honestly, don't understand what happened. What my family went through, and is still going through, is alien to anyone else no matter what they have faced. Sometimes I get very defensive of my own journey with grief. I admitted to a friend today that the holiday weekend for me was not very fun, (and why), and that it probably won't ever be the same this time of year as it used to be. She responded with how amazing it is I can even talk about it openly. Yeah. I guess? Except... most of what I say is the safe stuff. The "Well he passed unexpectedly... still no cause..." is not the same as actually talking about what happened. Not just to him - to all of us. To my cousin, Allison, who was incredibly brave that night in our house when she got the news. (I am still in awe, in fact). To his wife, Natasha, who has openly and courageously logged her journey since. To my sister, who considered Lynn her best friend growing up, and who was on her Honeymoon when we called to tell her the news. My cousin, Ben, who somehow made me laugh consistently as we cried through the wake, the funeral, and the agonizingly long drive back home last September... feeling torn, limb by limb, away from Lynn, his remaining memory and the life he'd built in his too-short time on Earth. 

I think what I have to focus on as I push forward into another year of this, is not the memory of his loss - but the memory of how courageous my family showed themselves to be in light of it. Something I am so proud of is the ability my siblings and cousins, mother and father and aunts and uncles, have at laughing in their sorrow. Acknowledging the pain, but finding a glimmer of 'what Lynn would say,' in it. 

Lynn was hysterical. He loved his life. He danced through it, as my Aunt Cyndi so wisely stated last night, and he knew how to inspire us to do the same. At his funeral - where what must have been over 1,000 people sang in his memory, I glanced around the room and thought "If I touch even a third this many lives in my life, I will know I've lived it well." 

As Tom, (my brother), and I went through the day yesterday... we considered what we missed most about him, and what we needed going forward. We both said the same thing - we miss his advice. His quirky, honest, exuberant advice on life and love and what to do. Realizing I had only shared snippets of what my conversations with Lynn had been with Tom, I finally shared one of the most profoundly LYNN messages he'd written to me in the last few years. I see no reason why these words of wisdom can't be shared with the world. 

So, for the sake of honoring and sharing a love, a friendship, and a mentor I'm sure I'll never find an equal to in life again, here goes: (I did, because this is a public blog, edit some segments out...)

• 
  

  My lovely cousin,

  I had an experience last night that has rendered me... extremely uncertain in my life, and for whatever reason my heart told me to write to you.

  Last night I was driving from Albany to Rochester to 1) spend the weekend with my boyfriend, and 2) sing for an evensong performance he helped put together in Rochester tonight (I was assigned "Frauenliebe und Leben," by Schumann and I don't think I will ever think of it the same way again). I was tired, and flustered, because I'd worked for 8 hours on not enough sleep, and then spent the hours before leaving at about 8:30pm for a 4 hour drive buying last minute presents and trying to tackle everything on my to-do list. So, I got tired behind the wheel, and refused to pull over to get some coffee, and the roads got slippery... and the next thing I knew, about an exit or two on 90West I went to merge from the left lane into the right... and wound up tail-spinning completely off the road. I slid into oncoming traffic, including trucks, coming at me on 90East as I clutched the steering wheel and prayed "please do not let me die tonight", and saw headlights and heard horns, and skidded into a ditch where I finally managed to break. I just stared at my hands wondering if I was really alive; I noticed a truck had pulled over, and my door was being opened by a man I didn't know, who was crying and hugging me and saying "I did not think you would survive, you have somebody looking out for you... please say a prayer and thank the lord for what you just survived tonight..." That man proceeded to coach me through trying to drive my car out of that ditch (which failed - I'm pretty sure the underside of my car looks like my back tires right now..), and then he called 911 and told them what happened when I couldn't make enough sense of it to speak for myself. Everyone all night kept saying to me "It is a miracle you are alive. You have angels looking out for you."

  I know I should feel grateful, and I do, but my overall feeling right now is this nauseating sense that I didn't deserve it. I've been yelling at God for months for the life I've been leading; for challenging me with student loans and serious people who don't understand me, and making me work in the Department of Health when I could be singing on a stage somewhere. I haven't said thanks. I haven't been a good christian. I have this overwhelming feeling that, had I died last night, I wouldn't have gotten to see anything of the 'Someone looking out for me'. I feel lost and like I need to change my life, but I do not know where to start. I'm sorry this has been such a novel, but I couldn't think of anyone more equipped to answer me tonight.

  I love looking at your pictures with your family, and cannot express to you how wonderful it is to see you doing so well. I never would have expected less, but I am thankful for Facebook (never thought I'd say that) for allowing me to see you from so far away right now. I hope you're having a great holiday season so far; happy anniversary, and all my best. Talk to you soon.

  Much love, Ju ju
• 
  
• 

  5:32pm
  

  Lynn Erskine
  

  
  

  My dear cousin,

  First, thanks for this. You sent your message at a time when I've been on the road a lot. (Actually, you sent it on my sixth anniversary, which has since been successfully celebrated!) I had read it, but I love and respect you way too much to write a trite Sunday-School-style response to you. That, and I felt happy and tender at the memories of how our family has always been able to talk openly with one another (the cousins, at least). It was almost therapeutic for me to read your message, especially because of the happy ending!

  Julie, it makes perfect sense for you to have questions and even to be angry with God. Though I am not privy to that area of your soul that only you and God spend time in, I know one thing about God: that God has always been there. It's one of the wonderful - even sometimes annoying - things about Jesus. No matter how satisfied I feel walking the road that Christ has set out for me, I completely identify with the questions that you ask yourself.

  The raw truth is that there aren't answers to almost any of these questions. This might seem random, but that is why I like old people. Old people have lived through identity pursuits, shattered hopes, mountaintop excitement, and the wise ones can trace God's hand through all of it. I don't know many old people who have answers, but they have figured out that these nagging questions are important, worth thinking through, worth wrestling, but never worth being consumed by. Old people don't get those of us in our 20's sometimes because they think we're dramatic. And why wouldn't we be? This is all new to us? We're just beginning, just learning how to trust God enough to follow God on our life journeys. We're facing for the first time many decisions of whether we can trust God when this isn't the way things were "supposed" to happen.

  From what I can tell in my experience and study of God (not necessarily class study), the Holy Spirit of Christ is the only One who can look at our lives and connect all our dots. What we're walking on doesn't feel straight and narrow, particularly when we're narrowly missing death on freezing, busy Interstates and trying to dig ourselves out of ditches (literally and figuratively). There you are, with a great deal of success for someone in your experience and location, yet you're at home, in debt, with a day job that surrounds you with people who think "Frauenliebe und Leben" is either expensive beer or some European delicacy. On top of that, you're faced with life flashing before your eyes - a life saved by One you're not exactly happy with right now.

  Julie, your life was spared by the One who connects the dots of your life in ways none of us will ever understand. I'm personally grateful that your dots extend another several years. And I feel hopeful about what that could mean. To me, God sparing your life means you will see another day. You'll see new experiences. You'll see a time when your debts are erased, when you are more self-sufficient, when the Department of Health sends you a severance bonus, when your warm heart and smile light up another song to delight another crowd.

  None of this is because you deserve it. None of life is about that. God isn't interested about who deserves what. God knows there's something beyond daily doldrums, something beyond whatever merit we do or do not have. Christ is not Someone we know because we're good, because we're eternally happy, because we're full of love, because everything is right for us. Christ is Someone we know because God loves us enough to be in relationship with us. It is that relationship over time that results in Christ's goodness flowing out of us, eternal joy welling up within, love being offered without condition, and the right things being right at the right time and the right place. It's like any relationship that way: the more time we spend in a particular relationship, the more like the other person we become. You and I can only catch a glimpse of this now, in our 20's, with everything unknown ahead of us, but things will work out. If it means fame, fortune, and every outlandish dream lived out in your life, great! If not, I suspect you'll be glad because you'll have a better picture of what "things working out" really means. (Nevertheless, I will be shocked if you don't see several of your dreams come to pass.)

  And, by the way, God can take your anger and questions. Sometimes we think God will punish us or get mad at us if we get mad at God. Maybe, but I'm pretty sure God is big enough to be able to handle it when we have questions. God is bigger than our biggest questions, and God is the only One with answers, whether or not God chooses to give them to us. Furthermore, God knows how relationships work. When we have anxiety, confusion, sadness, and anger over our circumstances, it is the people with whom we have relationships that feel the brunt of it. The people close to us get it the most because we feel safe with them; they're always there. Who is more always there than God? Christ gives us relationship with God, so Christ knows that He will bear the anger and emotions we have. Remember He loves us, so He'll bear it and love us more.

  It's funny how uncomplicated God can be. For all the questions we come up with about God, it's all quite simple in the end. Christ gives us relationship, expresses God's love, and spends every moment loving us, spending time with us by the Holy Spirit. It's like John knew something profound when he wrote simply, "God is love."

  So, lovely and thankfully saved-from-death cousin, God is love for you. It sounds like you love Him, too, even if you feel different emotions from time to time. Not that you need my advice or anything else after this diatribe, but I would simply say, "Get on with loving God and letting God love you." I have a lot of hope when I think about you. I believe in you a lot. How much more hope does God, who made you and knows you inside and out, have for you? How more more does God, who loves you perfectly, believe in you? I get excited just typing it out!!

  So, if you're still reading, thanks again. You've reminded me how much I support you. You've also reminded me how precious you are. I don't doubt your affection for our family and probably never will. We are doing well, though remember that pictures only capture the outside shell. We're great, but we're just people, too.

  Happy new year, and I look forward to seeing how life unfolds before you!

  Love, Lynn