8 Ball In The Wind

Monday, January 4, 2021

Road-Trip 2022, The Backstory

 

My name is Brian Lange.  In very early 1991, I was having some health issues, and having difficulty getting them diagnosed.  After recovering from a serious case of pancreatitis, I began having Grand Mal seizures, and the search for the cause of those began.  At the same time, on the first day of the original Gulf War against Iraq, my father died suddenly.  He was cremated, and my oldest brother took his ashes and stored them.

It was only a couple of weeks after that I was diagnosed with a type of tumor between the two halves of my brain almost directly behind my eyes.  It was removed on Valentine's Day 1992.  Because of the damage that had been done to my brain by the tumor, I had lost nearly half the strength in my left side (I am left-handed), I couldn't talk for nearly 6 months.  Also, I had lost much of my dexterity in my left hand, and I had developed memory issues and would forget words, and what I was even doing.  The Drs. told me that because of the ongoing seizures, I wouldn't be able to ride a motorcycle or even drive a car.  It took me nearly 13 years to recover enough to go back to work, drive, and ride a motorcycle again, which I eventually was able to do.  However, by that time, my wife had become disabled due to issues with her liver that would lead to her death in 2018.

I ended up with my father's ashes and had intended to take them back to Illinois and spread them there where he had grown up, and his family was.  But it seemed that work, bills, and life, in general, seemed to always keep that plan on the back burner.  It always seemed to find itself lower in priority than work needing to be done to the house, the car, the motorcycle, etc.  After I lost my wife in 2018, I lost my home, and nearly everything.  I am back on disability with a bad back, and heart failure, among other issues.  Time is growing short, and I truly feel that I need to raise this up on the priority scale and complete this task.  


Since my father used to ride before he joined the army before World War II; and then started a family, and the riding blood runs through me and several members of my family, I thought it only fitting to take Dad on one last ride home to his kin.

There is much to be done to prepare for this ride.  I truly believe this will probably be the last great ride of my life, and I can't imagine a better purpose behind it.  The route has been generally laid out.  The 30,000 foot level of planning has been done, and the time has come to begin acting to bring those plans to fruition.  Collecting the materials I will need to actually have during the trip that I don't currently have, preparing a bike to make the journey, and getting myself physically and mentally prepared to complete the trip.  While I have the actual trip budgeted out, it is the preparatory costs I am uncertain about at this point.  But knowing that, I expect to be able to get those costs taken care of, and to work through to the conclusion of this effort.

I'll be posting here, on a Facebook page that I have created about this effort called "Taking My Dad's Ashes Home".  In time I plan on also posting updates as part of my YouTube channel revitalization.  until this starts gaining momentum, take care, and may 2021 be a better year than 2020 was.

Catch you on the road sometime...




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