Believe
Why Sarah Rides
Some people say that everything happens for a reason; others say that life is unfair and sometimes terrible things happen to good people. I don’t know which I believe, but what I do know is that you cannot live your life constantly asking yourself these questions. All we know for certain is the simple truth that some times things happen which are far beyond our control and understanding. Ultimately, you are forced to take life, both the good and the bad things, and decide how it will impact you. When I was only fourteen, my father died of lung cancer at the young age of forty. He never smoked. Some might find this situation to be unfair, as if life was unjust by stealing my father from me before we could share together the many monumental life moments that were yet to come. However, I will never be able to judge the fairness of my life, and I have since stopped trying to find explanations where perhaps none exist.
Instead I choose to look for purpose and meaning in the things that do happen to me. We are stagnant when we let life control us, but we are free when we choose how to live regardless of what life has dealt us. And so, at the age of 15, I had found the motivation which has and will continue to drive me for the rest of my life. Never should a young child carry their dying father up the stairs because he is too frail – the same child who years earlier was flying high on his shoulders… Never should that child have to hear the thud of dirt as she lays him to rest below the earth... Never should that child bear the burden of life always seeking to fill a hole…
My goal is to someday, and for someone, make that never come true.
For awhile my motivation sufficed, and knowing that I would one day make a difference was sufficient. However, I have found that life has an interesting way of shaking us out of our complacency. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at the beginning of this school year. She is currently under treatment and doing quite well; however, it was initially frightening given my history with the disease. My feelings of fear, helplessness, and defeat were pervasive as I was forced to face cancer within my family for the second time in my life. Moreover, I also had responsibilities to others that I desired to fulfill and in such a way that they would not guess that I was struggling personally. For a time, it was quite challenging.
The tranquility one experiences while bike riding is quite conducive for meditative thought, and it was while riding that I knew that I could no longer live in fear or be defeated by cancer. So, at the moment that I prepared myself to climb the last hill of my ride and head for home, I knew what I had to do.
Complacency and dreams would no longer be enough; what I needed was action, what I desired – impact, and what I strove for above all– belief. I found it in myself as well as in 7 of my closest friends who had the heart and motivation to find it in them as well. Together we form Team Believe, and together we will embark on a magnificent journey symbolic of the fight against cancer. Crossing the country on a bike, like curing cancer, appears to be utterly impossible to many individuals at first. We have no doubt that at times it will be excruciating, exhausting, and painful. We know we will ride all day and then when we desire to ride no farther, we will have no choice but to forge along. We will also come to seemingly insurmountable mountains, but with time we will overcome them together. After a long climb, we will summit a peak just to stare down into the valley knowing we must do it all over again. We find solace in the fact that we will overcome the next one as well. The road will be inevitably long and often appear to be heading in no particular direction, but we will always be moving forward will eventually reach our destination.
So, like many do, we can choose to believe that such a trip is impossible. Or, we can choose to believe in ourselves and in the spirit of humanity to persevere and triumph. We, as Team Believe, choose the second. One day, and with adequate resources and support, we will triumph in our quest for a cure. By no means will the journey be easy, but that is not to say that it is impossible. From us, the battle against cancer will require resilience, it will demand courage, and above all it will ask for belief.
Team Believe is ready.
So please join us: Believe in Yourself, Believe in the Cause, Believe in the Cure.
Because, one day – one day we will win!
Believe