While the road was flatter today I experienced my own personal emotional rollercoaster. I started the day on a super high with a zoom yoga meditation class lead by friend and mentor Denise Bonnaig but learned shortly thereafter that another dear friend with my kind of lung cancer passed away this morning. She is the third friend who has passed from lung cancer since I started my ride 21 days ago. No matter how much I try to stay positive, these deaths fill me with a deep sadness on so many levels. I started riding today gently sobbing with each pedal stroke but the beauty of the landscape filled with colorful wildflowers and lively horses and cows and farmers working the land exuded life and joy, an elixir too sweet to ignore. For the hours we rode I held thoughts of joy and sadness, life and death, coterminously in my mind and body and rather than the stress and discomfort often associated with such cognitive dissonance I found peace and comfort in the combination. I was reminded of the words my teacher Denise used to close this morning’s meditation: the art of living and the art of dying are one and the same. May we all find peace. ❤️
My friend who passed today was both a doctor and a patient and a strong advocate for better treatments and diagnostics for lung cancer. See below and link to a speech she delivered last May entitled “We Can Do Better”.