"let's get coffee..."

January, 2009...  MLFN sent me that note...

circumstances kept conflicting... we kept trying, but i missed the sense of urgency and he was good at hiding it...

i dug through the emails looking for the exact one...  found lots of his emails but not that specific one.

this one hit hard: "Hey all, please pardon my absence for the Smackdown tomorrow.  You will not be having me along once again.  It will happen this Tues on Every month.  Some of you know why, and if you don't, you don't need to know.  I hope someone can take over the event tomorrow.  I know there as quite a few now who know the smack-down philosophy!!!"

By that time i did know. Dr Flats maybe or AD or someone had told me... All season since the start of the smack down in 2009 he was missing one per month. He made every other one and usually kicked everyone's ass. Seriously.

He missed them because that one week he was getting Chemo.

Big difference between his passing and Ezras I suppose. I got dropped coming back, he made the gap, on Greenfield, and I missed it. I wasn't alone, but watching him ride away from me while bridging the gap when i couldn't was the last time I saw him.

We stopped a few times along there to wait for him (to shit in the woods). He sent Keith Kelly out to our ride on his way home. He rode back to Dr Flat's house and saw Kelly on the BLVD.

He rolled back home, checked into the hospital, was medically transfered to Boston that night, then to Syracuse where he died surrounded by his family.

He hid it well. very well.

Not sure we're going to get the big MLFN ride off like we did last year. That was fun. Even if we did split up, get lost, wind up with AD and JC and me, heck BG nearly killed us all at one point... but it was a beautiful day, a great ride, good friends.  Life, a graduation, final game of the season, work, birthdays, anniversaries, rehearsals, running races, culmination peformances father's day...  all that started on Sunday and won't stop for a while...

But maybe I need to take a page from my wife's book of philosophy. Why do you need to have so much emphasis on one day, one ride, when every day, every ride, can be in his memory.

It is true. Every smack down ride is a MLFN ride. Even if it is on the east side route.

Every day is a gift. He treated it as such. It was that spring (2009) one of those rides May 19th to be exact, my spokes broke on the Vector Pros. couldn't ride. Started walking, didn't have my phone with me, Mark gave me his iPhone, Brier called in his coworker who lived in the area, got me back to his office and I drove the green monster van home. A collection of wonderful efforts by friends to bail out me and my busted bike.

I got there and woke him up the next morning, he had bailed on going to work, spent the day at home in bed, but at least with his phone.

So we ride, I ride, in his memory. Every week.

But lets at least take a few moments on the 11th of June every year to if nothing else, reflect on what an amazing human being he was, and how he beat every single odd stacked in his favor and lived the fullest life a full four years longer than 99% of the people who are diagnosed with that specific cancer at the stage he was diagnosed at.  Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM)...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glioblastoma_multiforme

scattered thoughts today...

But that coffee thing,

let's get coffee, always is weighted a bit more for me than some people realize. I missed coffee with Mark...

I also missed a ride with Sheldon Brown, but that's a different story...

time to start getting everything in order for the smackdown...

heddwch
G