It’s October and that finds me thinking of my dad and Lance Armstrong. No, they never met, but October connects them by birthdays. My dad Sam would have been 63 on the 24th...but he died in January 2003 of lung cancer. I came to “know” Lance Armstrong after his diagnosis.
While visiting friends, I picked up their copy of “It’s Not About the Bike” by Lance. I had briefly heard of his cancer diagnosis, battle with the disease and incredible comeback. After thumbing through the book and reading tidbits, I felt connected to the story and reluctantly started back at the beginning. The book was brutally honest about the monster that is cancer, the chemo, the questions, breaking down and just feeling helpless...I found that Lance put words to feelings that I just couldn’t. I was at the beginning of this journey and he was on the other side, that perspective gained was rich with knowledge and experience. It was both cathartic and scary as hell.
I got involved in the Lance Armstrong Foundation right away. I sent letters, I raised money, I rallied support and mostly...I just believed it was making a difference. “Daddy, I raised enough money that Lance Armstrong invited me to Austin for the Ride for the Roses!” Sam was proud of me and I believed in Lance.
In 2004 I was blessed to go on my first trip to Italy. With a little creative planning, I was able to be in Paris for the final day of the Tour De France. This was truly one of the most spectacular moments of my life. The streets are alive with cheering people, the excitement is palpable everywhere, and just at the end of the Champs Elysees was a group of folks I had never met before, but who were family to me. There were hundreds of Americans who had gathered to cheer on Lance as he rode into Paris, made the turn at the Arc de Triomphe, and crossed the finish line a champion of epic proportions. We didn’t stand on the cobblestoned streets, pressed against one another for a glimpse of the man in the yellow jersey because we loved cycling...but because we believed in Lance Armstrong. This was the year of the Livestrong bracelet and everyone had one - the cyclists, the team managers, the ladies in the bakeries, almost every wrist lining this famous stretch of Parisian history was ringed in bright yellow. We were there for Lance.
I was there for Lance. The previous year without my dad was incredibly difficult and my mom, sister and I all dealt with this loss in very different ways. My mother spent a great deal of time at the lake healing, my sister slammed every emotional door possible and did not want to talk about it, and me...well I vacillated between incredibly depressed and highly charged to do “something”. While my dad was in treatment, we were doing something. When the treatments weren’t working, we tried experimental drugs to do something. As the disease took its toll and Dad needed more help, Mom and I scurried around, always doing something. At the end, as days and hours with no sleep and no rest just blurred together, we were so protective of his needs and meds and charts and kept on doing something. After he was gone, the arrangements and funeral over, the food lovingly packed away, friends and relatives hugged and sent home, paperwork tidied up...there was nothing to do. I was adrift with the sudden punt back to life before the diagnosis. The loss was everywhere and there was nothing I could do...the one person that I wanted to run to was gone. Now what?
All of this welled up and came to a crescendo in Paris as I stood there in my LAF Ride for the Roses shirt and my eyes locked with Lance on his victory lap. My husband David captured the moment perfectly in a photo and as I remember that instant...it seemed to stretch on and on. It was electric. Reflecting on Lance’s battle with cancer, being in the trenches with my father, then in an almost surreal moment, connecting with Lance 5,000 miles away from my home as he became a record winning champion of the Tour...well, suffice it to say, that moment has left an indelible marker on my memory.
We celebrated...everyone of every team color celebrated this victory! It was madness until the wee hours, and this, like the book was not about the bike. We celebrated this comeback story, this fighter, the drive to be stronger, faster, and more resilient than ever. Lance was a finely tuned machine that had beaten cancer and that gave me, well us, hope.
For me, there was no topping that Tour victory. I followed the rest, kept up with the daily results and cheered from my living room. My young nephews would get so excited to see “Lance’s race”. Friends forwarded all the Lance info they came across, I continued supporting and raising awareness for what was now Livestrong, and continued to believe in Lance the athlete, the cancer survivor, the advocate.
It’s silly, I know, when folks get riled up over a sports team or particular athlete. I was no different with Lance Armstrong. Any negative press would bring ribbing from friends, I’m sure to see me get defensive. All the tests were negative, he’s a cancer survivor for Pete’s sake, he’s using all the modern technology available, look at all those incredible stats! Things started to look a bit suspect when former Postal riders were caught doping with other teams, but Lance was clean. I kept my hope and belief in Lance strong.
I remember being mad at my dad at various times after his diagnosis - I mean, fuming mad. After all, it was his fault that he had lung cancer after smoking. We watched my dad’s father die of the same disease and it was excruciating. How could he be so selfish? Why am I getting robbed of so much time with my dad? How could his grandsons ever know what a cool guy he was? What about my mom? How could you leave us on purpose like this?!?!?
Sadly, I feel that familiar frustrating anger over Lance Armstrong. How could you?
If I could say something to Lance Armstrong today, it would be the thing I dreaded the most from my dad...”I’m very disappointed.” I would have rather been on the receiving end of an hour long tirade than hear that one sentence followed by hollow, deafening silence. It’s doubtful that Lance would feel any of that by my one sentence, but trust me, it carries weight. My heart is heavy after the “overwhelming” evidence that Lance was one of the most sophisticated doping participants ever...but it’s almost broken that he lied about it for so long. I’m all about forgiveness and second chances, but at some point - hopefully before you are so red handed that you have to bow out of the charity you founded - just come clean (no pun intended) with the truth. It will set you free. And I suspect that “free” isn’t something that Lance will feel for a long time.
