My Reflections on the Ride
I woke up, today around 8:30. Yesterday, I had finished riding 840 kilometers in eight days and I thought I deserved a sleep-in.

I had a small breakfast and put on my riding gear. It was drizzly and gloomy looking outside. I didn't care; I was in Montreal and I wanted to ride up the mountain I wasn't sure when I would be back this way.

Once I got on the quiet trails I finally got a chance to think. This is what I had been wanting to do the whole trip.

When I had first thought of this trip, my intention was to spend a few days in the saddle just contemplating my life without Victor and how it had effected me. I wanted to come up with the right combination of words that could put it all in perspective. Something that I could put a name or handle to. I wanted to be able to describe how it feels to lose someone very close and important to me and yet be able to save someone else's life; even if I didn't know them. Even if I would never know them. I wanted to be able to tell someone what it's like to be an organ door's family member.

I do a lot of thinking on the bike; I find it a form of therapy. Weekend mornings I ride for hours, sorting through all lot of things. Now I was grinding up Mount Royal doing what I love to do.

I cruised up the crushed gravel trail passing kids and tourists and dog walkers.

I thought about the ride. I thought about twenty years ago. I had flashes of little memories; some I will have forever. Different memories came at me from all directions; some recent, some very old. Some quite random and others closely connected...

My fellow rider, Terry; drifting out into the road outside of Picton, oblivious to the pick up that nearly plowed him into the ditch. Smiling, he continued yakking to our other rider, Grant, as the truck's driver cursed and mashed the gas pedal down.

I remembered Grant's sweet wife Lori. She's standing by her S.U.V. and the trunk is open. there's enough food for twenty and she's trying to wave, yell hello and take a picture of us all at the same time. What a dear! I'm so glad she was with us.

Grant Hagerty. His huge shoulders in our black and white jerseys. A double lung recipient, he had requested we silk-screen the nick name, "The Caboose" on the back of his jersey. He thought he would be behind Terry and I most of the way. I recall seeing "The Caboose" ahead of me for and awful lot of this ride.

Our road manager, Sabrina; locked out of her room and near tears with frustration. Earlier that day, I remembered I acting like a spoiled four-year-old and she simply waited until I stopped being a brat and calmly telling me where I had left the stickers I was blaming her for losing.

My best buddy and Victor's "Brother From Another Mother", Warren. His huge fingers reaching into the molten mess of poutine that I had to have when I got Montreal. He had to have precisely ONE fry and ONE cheese curd. It was like watching a crab tie a shoe lace. The only thing bigger that Warren's hands is his heart. He's a great, big, sweet guy.

Cynthia Mac Gregor. Forgiving my joke told in questionable taste and then thanking me for being allowed to help me on the ride. She had just finished her cancer treatments in March. While many people would be hiding under the covers, she was moving Heaven and earth to make our Montreal stop the huge success it was. A warrior.

My legs started to feel better. After even the few short hours since yesterday's ride, I was feeling a bit stiff and wanted to "wring" out my legs to keep them from seizing up. I clicked up a gear and pedalled a little harder.

I remembered the look in my mother's eyes on November 12, 1989. She was standing above her youngest son, who was laying in an I.C.U. bed. She was looking at me and it seemed she was beseeching me to make Vic better. To end his pain and hers. Her eyes looked like those of an animal in excruciating pain and I felt utterly, utterly helpless.

I remember my Dad saying it killed him to see his once over-active son, Vic, laying there "like a carrot stick".

And I also remember my Dad's eyes brimming with tears of pride when I rolled up to him on my bike as he told me how proud he was of me. He told me this yesterday, outside the very hospital where he had lost his youngest son twenty years before.

I remember a female police officer in Guelph. I'm looking out the window of the limo and we're following the hearse with Vic's ashes in it going to the church. It's bitterly cold and windy. She turned to us and smartly saluted. There were tears in her eyes.

Huntley Addie, Vic's best bud in Montreal. With his big grin, he was always a nice guy to me and when we had an impromptu ceremony yesterday on Ste. Anne de Bellevue, he was there. He hadn't aged a day. He still had that smirk and winning, easy going demeanor that he had twenty years before. I'm glad I saw him and he had brought Vic's other pal, Dave Bedard. We scattered water from The Victor Davis Memorial Pool around the spot where Vic had been struck on the November night.

The drizzle was getting a little heavier. I wondered if I'd made a bad decision. We hadn't had any rain on the whole trip and now it was starting up. I didn't wear much more than a cycling jersey. I hope I'd be warm enough.

We were outside of Hawkesbury, Ontario. It was gray and cool. We were fighting a stiff head wind and I was beginning to have doubts about the whole ride. I said to Grant, Why had I dragged these people out here? What was I thinking? Was this going to make any difference at all?

He smiled and looked over at me and said,

"We saved at least one life."

I stared at him.

"Greg, we've spoken to dozens of reporters, we've been to eight hospitals in seven days. Tomorrow, we'll be going to two more hospitals. We're going to talk to at least five more reporters. Of all the articles the reporters are going to write or air on the television news, at least one person will register to donate their organs. And maybe not next week and maybe not next year but someday, somewhere, someone will get the gift of life."

"We've saved at least one life, Greg. You should be proud of that."

I thought I had reached the top of the hill. The tourists were heading towards a pavilion. I rolled down to where the few tourists that remained were. I asked a stranger to take my picture with Montreal in the background. The city that Victor had loved so much.

Grant's words were still echoing around my head as I thought of Zoe and her mother. We had pulled up to Notre Dame hospital. We were immediately surrounded by well wishers, hospital staff and media. Everybody seemed to be talking at once. Finally I saw them. A tiny, tiny little girl in her mother's arms. I was introduced to Zoe.

Zoe had been in the hospital all day. She had received a heart transplant last year and it was time for her tests. She had been poked and prodded by a bunch of nurses and doctors and had a big needle poked in her arm and blood taken out. There was a bandage on her little left arm where they had taken blood from her. She was not happy. I didn't blame her. I don't like that and I'm a big guy. She was tired and hurt from all the poking and all she wanted to do was go home. Instead, she was surrounded by a bunch of noisy people and now a great big guy she didn't know wanted to talk to her.

She shyly hid her head in her Mama's shoulder.

I looked a Zoe's mother, Catherine. She smiled and said that Zoe was being shy. After a while, the hub bub died down a bit and Zoe found something she really wanted; a "balon vert".

I sat cross-legged on the grass with her and her Mama and we played with her green balloon. Catherine looked up at me and said, "Thank you for doing this, Greg".

I still don't have the right words I've spent a week and twenty years looking for but after meeting Zoe, it doesn't matter anymore.

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