Lessons in the Cemetery.

Sunday: sitting in my little condo just about to get ready for the second ride of the weekend and hoping it is a better than the ride we did on Friday. The route itself was great, a mixture of town, lake-shore and cemeteries and was very a very good route but I still managed to lose a chain once and fall off twice. 


Lycra on, heart rate monitor on, money in pocket, raincoat in little pouch, damn shoes on, helmet on, energy gel packed, drinks loaded, computer charged, tires pumped ... feel like I should be going behind the lines in Libya rather than a bicycle ride .......


What a stunning ride! 41km on Friday and 54km Sunday so almost 100km this weekend. Still not record breaking but certainly very satisfying and I seem to have found my talent for powering up hills. In total, this weekend, I fell off THREE times and chain off once but well worth it. Bruised but not diminished. 

On both rides we went through Mount Pleasant cemeteries which proved to be a cause for reflection. The first thing you notice is just how multicultural the headstones are. Parts are predominantly Chinese or Korean, parts Christian and smatterings of little flags of all nationalities stuck into graves no doubt as a remembrance of the 'old country'. There is even a Jewish section and I was told that that is very unusual. Apparently it's all to do with how sacred the ground is but it is refreshing to see true multi-culturalism, where everyone is accepted as being equal in death, at least in Canada anyway. I can't help feeling a bit more of this thinking would serve the world well. 

Harvey and Chris reflected on where various friends were buried and joked about people from the past and it struck me that all the loss we felt last year when we lost Clint had been experienced by many people many many times over. A couple of weeks ago I spoke with someone of the 11 friends he lost to AIDS and in the cemetery it hit home the enormity of what that must have been like to go through. 


It was a strange little journey. On the one hand the realisation that my fear/worries  of death had diminished a great deal since the last time I gave it serious thought and on the other hand the awareness of the huge emotional history reflected in special places like Mount Pleasant. 


Above all, despite being in a place of death I realised why the rally is called the "Friends for LIFE bike rally". Whilst we all will be in places similar to Mount Pleasant one day and our journey may be peaceful and serene and full of acceptance we need to try and help others avoid arriving before they have to. 

On a lighter note. How's this for a headstone? Very grand affair indeed. It is for Steve Stavro and whilst the man was a member of the order of Malta and had many other great honours and his own wiki-pedia entry I feel that having Alexander the Great on your headstone is a little crass. But then again, since when did death automatically bestow style.


Looking forward to next weeks ride.


D x