So that’s my mom there and she’s celebrating a birthday today. She was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She lived on the second floor of a three story brown stone walk-up off of Lincoln Park. She had one brother older and one brother that was younger. They were a well heeled clan and into the finer things in life. At least that’s the way I tell it because growing up a short walk away from Wrigley Field and not going to a Cubs game her entire life seems a statistical stretch. She is the last of a long line of PHD’s in the field of psychology. She has practiced it so much on me, that sometimes I think that I have a degree as well. Anyway, she went onto college in Appleton, Wisconsin where she met my father. They traveled back to Germany to study for a year and eventually they married creating four boys of unusual shapes, sizes, abilities, and personalities. Being a hot house flower growing up, my mother had seemingly no problem getting a bit grubby. It was either get comfortable going camping, fishing, to football games, and wrestling matches or run for her life. She opted for staying and has had to put up with all the grief four boys can throw at a person.

I’m fortunate to have someone like my mother in my life. The obvious is that she is without a doubt my biggest supporter. I’m not certain I can do anything wrong in her eyes and she only sees the unlimited potential in me. One time when I was in Minnesota, I got busted for urinating in public. The cop read me the riot act and threatened to take me downtown. I was cuffed and stuffed in the back of a cop car for a while where he checked my record. When it came up clean he let me go. The next week I was talking to my mother and she asked me how my weekend went. I related the story about getting nailed for using a public wall and ally as a toilet and my subsequent brush with the law and she said, “what do you think that cop’s problem was?” Beautiful. In school my mother pushed me to be more and do more than the average. She knew I was capable of exceeding limits that I put on myself. It's been that way with everything. Even today, she wants to know how my racing and training is going and has even been to a bike race to watch me suffer. I'm lucky to have someone in my life that sees my accomplishments and revels in them.

So it was a little over a year ago that I was punched in the gut regarding some bad news that my mother received. The kind of news that makes you stare up at heaven and really question the way things are. My mother was very brave about the news and that gave every one in the family great comfort. I've lost a brother to cancer and I've heard countless stories of others just as unfortunate. Watching my brother decay before my eyes was an awful experience. I am naturally an upbeat guy and I think anything is possible (no doubt because of the support through the years by my mother). But when I thought about the news my mother received, I could not understand why she would even try to carry on. If it was me, I'd curl up in a ball overwhelmed with depression. My mother was quick to feel my trepidation with the course of action and simply told me that she had to try to do everything the doctors said and that by trying, maybe something good would happen. And something did. She had to endure some incredibly harsh treatment. I've kept myself removed from a lot of the details, because frankly sometimes it's just to hard to bare. But from what I understand, they threw a house at her and something clicked. The doctors themselves are a bit perplexed, but at this point no one is really concerned about how my mother's body responded so well to the treatment. She has a new lease on life and that's a true miracle given the initial prognosis. Today is the second birthday that I've gotten to spend with her after receiving the bad news. At the time she was initially diagnosed, the doctors didn't know if she would make it to her next birthday, and here she still is. I've been around for 40 years now and it's funny that the greatest thing that I've learned from my mother I've learned only recently. You never stop trying and you never stop hoping. Happy birthday mom, and here's to the many more to come.

Your son,

Johnny GoFast