One Foot In Front Of The Other

We headed back to PA on Thursday afternoon. The xB was too loaded down with Christmas cheer, Jake The Dog and we humans to fit any bike gear, so I needed to come up with a plan to blow the pre-holiday stink off of me. So Friday I went to White Oak park to walk a few miles. Yes walk.

The original plan was to hike some of the trails, but the ground was a muddy, soggy mess and you know I can't mess up my kicks, yo. So I strapped on my iPod and walked whilst jamming to some tunes. It was sort of refreshing but also frightening in a "my God is this what my life will be like when I'm too old or lazy to ride my bike" sort of way.

It also brought back some memories, both good and bad.

Memory One: As most of you readers know, when I was in my late teens and early 20s I was a big blob of 300 lb. human flesh. One day in the fall or winter of (1992?) I decided enough was enough and was determined to not have to go out and purchase size 44 waist pants. The problem was that I was too embarrassed with the way I looked to be seen out exercising in public, so I would head out during the the dark evening and walk a big loop hitting as many of the hills my town had. It was a LOT of work for someone my size who hadn't exercised in years. But it worked. Walking combined with watching my diet jump started the fat loss that eventually had me confident enough to buy my first mountain bike (A rigid fork GT Timberline or something like that). The rest is Soiled Chamois history.

Memory Two: December 27th, 1999. I arrived at work after a brief Christmas holiday vacation. I was the first one to the office. I made coffee and settled into to my desk. Just as I was ready to start some work (or goof off, I can't remember) the phone rang, it was my dad. He was frantic and said something really bad was wrong with my mom, to get home fast. I sprinted out of work and fired up my small Honda Civic hatchback. I drove as fast as I could, taking the little Hatchback's speedometer to places it probably should not have gone.

I arrived home to find no one there, I was sure they had gone to the hospital 10 or 15 minutes away. Back to Honda and once again I found myself driving fast and praying to God in hopes that what I thought was happening was NOT actually happening.

It was happening.

I ran into the emergency room asking about my mom and was lead into a room where my brother and sister in law were standing by my father who was sitting in chair inconsolably crying. He looked up at me with his eyes filled with tears. "She's gone, your mom's gone." I started to tremble, then cry. I think I punched something.

A few minutes later we were allowed to say goodbye to my mom who's body laid still in the room next to us. I wish to God I never would have gone in that room. Her color was gone and her skin was ice cold except for the warm tears that rolled off my cheeks and on to her. I should not have gone in there. I should have been told "no, remember her the way she was." The rest of the day was a blur of tears, rage, tears, hugs and crying with my family.

The next day it started to snow, we were gathered at parent's home. We were all exhausted with sadness. Someone, I think it was my brother or maybe it was Wifey, suggested going for a walk in the snow. So Wifey, my brother and I headed out into the falling snow. We walked around the neighborhood talking, trying (and pretty much failing) to not talk too much or think too much about what had just happened. Still, there was a peace to that walk that was amazing. Each cold gust of wind or wet snowflake in the face was beautiful. It was a gentle reminder from someone (my mom? A higher power? God?) to not take the little things in life (clean crisp winter breezes and big beautiful snowflakes) for granted and to REALLY cherish the big, amazing things (family, loving wives, the birth of a son years later).

While I can't say that going on that walk did anything to help the overwhelming sadness of losing my mother, it did help calm me down and put things in perspective just by putting one foot in front of the other.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I went for a walk because I didn't have my bike. I would have rather rode my bike, but walking had to do. I'll be glad to get back on my bike, the memories are better.

Later.