Why I PMC - Nancy Forristall

#WhyIPMC guest blog by Nancy Forristall, 6-year rider, Team Riverside Rockets

Why I ride the PMC..... I am rewriting my reason because after riding a few years I truly know why. I was 9 months old when my father Jimmy Harrison died of brain cancer. He had been ill in the Veterans hospital for months. My dear young 20-year-old mother told me later he did not want me to see him so sick, so she did not take me to the hospital. I was his first and only child. His family my grandparents were never the same according to my aunt after my dad died. He was their first-born son. They could not talk about the pain. I knew the unspoken loss my whole life. On my first PMC at a rest stop I was helped by a 20 something year old young man volunteer wearing a living proof T shirt. I thanked him and asked him what he had survived. He said brain cancer. I was flooded with emotion. My Dad was 24 when he died. This young man was the same age and survived. I knew at that moment “why I ride.”
Life has given me many other reasons to ride, so many people I have deeply loved and lost. My Grandfather Ronald McIntosh who was my hero in my life died of lung cancer, my grandmother Mary Mcintosh of ovarian cancer. Friends I loved taken too soon. Michele Gallant, Patty Barkus and last September my dear friend Kelly Bradbury from pancreatic cancer. I ride because I want the money to be raised to end this disease that takes and takes, that leaves families bereft. My friend Kelley’s daughter is only 31 with 2 ½ year old twins raising them on her own. Kelly used to watch the babies. She loved her grandbabies with all her heart, and they loved her.
I ride for Nani and Umpa,Harvy Karl, Hugh Doyle, Elise and Vern Browne, Tom Buckley,Dorothea Driscoll, Beth ORourke, Ron Wenger ,Jean Oldfield, Nancy Streeter, Acha Lord, Sal Dimartino,Clara Kennedy, Nancy Krasnow and for survivors Marc Clopton, Joan , David King,Cora,Billy Bodi Sturgem,Jeff Moore, Jason Field.
My Husband Charlie survived leukemia 20 years ago. Dr Dan DeAngelo and Nurse Emily Olson at Dana-Faber saved his life. My dear friend Sue Doyle’s sister Kathy Doyle is undergoing treatment for glioblastoma.
I have a list of those who have been lost, those who survived and those who are in treatment now. I wear the names on ribbons attached to my bike jersey taking them on the ride. Please donate generously for those you love. Please share their names if you wish and I will take them with me as I ride. 100% of rider raised money goes to Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund to find a cure.