The View from 58-inches High

We gathered at Kim’s house at 11:30 as if it were any other road trip. We coordinated what we were wearing, made sure we had snacks stocked, and hit the road. Navigation and witty banter started almost immediately as we settled into a familiar way of life. For all of the familiarity though, there was a cloud hanging over us. This 2-hour drive to a Waco suburb was no regular road trip. There were no bikes, no kits, no bottles filled with mix in coolers. We were dressed in our darkest Sunday best with our jerseys packed in bags to wear at request of the family of Missy to show that the cycling community is large and all of us are vulnerable.

It was difficult for us to stay too serious or sad as we drove to the funeral home because it’s not what Missy would have wanted. We spent a ton of time remembering Missy and even more time creating those types of memories that drew Missy to cycling in the first place. I’ve never left a race without at least one new inside joke spawned from some hilarious series of events you just had to be there to understand. Missy had a million of those. We know because everybody at the service had at least one Missy story. She lived to live.

We also had the opportunity to make a new friend in Katherine who ended up riding with us because Kim saw her at the shop and asked if she knew anybody who needed a ride. Just like that she’s one of us. It only takes a few minutes to totally connect with somebody, which is worth doing because they can be gone again in a second.

I’m now “one of the girls”. I never got this in high school. I would watch the cliques of girls take endless photos together, throw out constant inside jokes nobody else got, and giggle constantly. I realized today that I have a clique of girls now.

Kim has been planning Kate’s wedding shower for months. Really, this is Kim’s first party at the new house… that she’s lived in almost a year now. This wedding shower will be more extravagant than some people’s weddings. Today I took off work to help Kim with the preparation and to just keep her occupied. The plan was that I would pick up water and Topo Chico at Costco and take to Kim’s before 11:00 so we could pick up the keg together.

The Topo and water must have weighed 300lbs. I moved them into the cart, into my car, and into Kim’s garage. I wanted to take a nap but Kim was running late to get the keg. When we get to the brewery Nick leads us to where the kegs are stored and has Kim drive up a huge concrete ramp into a raised warehouse. The minute we park Kim has me take a photo of her car in this warehouse, I think she’s pretty proud of driving up the ramp. Nick comes out with the keg and has Kim take one side to lift it into the car. They lift it straight up and Nick says “Do you want to go all the way?” Kim looks at me and looks at Nick and replies “Weeeell, what do you mean by that?” Nick responds by rocking the keg up into the car. I laugh and tell Nick “Don’t worry, that’s nowhere near the first time Kim’s been asked that.” I think at that point Nick realized what he had asked and couldn’t stop laughing.

We get our shit together and Kim starts rolling down the ramp. She stops halfway and tells me to get out and take a photo. At this point, we’re about 5-feet off the ground and there’s nowhere to walk next to the car so I have to shimmy along the wall so I can close the door and jump down so I can go take a photo. We celebrated our successful keg getting with fabulous margaritas and everything about the day felt right.