The LIFE BUCKET Challenge

The Ice Bucket Challenge phenomenon has been a good thing for ALS awareness. Between critics and participants the spectrum of attention and controversy will hopefully get people to simply Google those three letters, to understand and learn how dreadful this disease is beyond the getting drenched with ice cold water. I googled it long ago. ALS sucks. This I believe, is one of the main points of the challenge, a little ice water over one’s head, is nothing compared to what life is left after being diagnosed with ALS.  I’ve realized though, that what we always need to do, whether you donate or pour the ice water, is appreciate life. Live it to the fullest.  YouTube videos and Facebook posts do not tell the whole story.

In September, I along with my good friend Michael Reed will be going on our own personal and first official Life Bucket Challenge. We will be doing something we have always wanted to do, a notch on our bucket list, per se. Instead of filling our buckets with ice water, we hope to fill it with life. Someday we will all kick that proverbial bucket. We can only hope that what spills from it is the stories of lives lived to the fullest.

The California Highway 1 runs the full stretch of the scenic coast and I tell everyone they need to do that drive at least once in their lives. I have meandered it’s windy roads a few times and each time it was just as awesome as the last. One time it took me three days to drive home from San Francisco to San Diego. It is one of those roads that encapsulates the essence of the journey, truly validating the destination. It is worth every second, the more time you take, the better. I never thought I would have it in me to ride a bicycle through it, though I have always imagined it’s splendor. It made it on my bucket list during one of those drives, but when I had friends actually accomplish the voyage via bicycle and tell me their first hand account of the exploit, it became a lot more realistic.  It was just a matter of time.  I say this often, “You have to take time, to make time, to have the time of your life.”  When Mike Reed called me about getting on that road and finally doing this, the time was there for the taking. 

On September 19, 2014 we will be departing Oakland powered by pedals pushed by our own two feet. I will be filling my life bucket with this journey in honor of Genaline Sales. She has been suffering from Scleroderma for 14 years. I hope to raise awareness and support for the Scleroderma Foundation, as well as for treatment funds for Genaline, who resides in my native hometown of Nabua, Camarines Sur in the Philippines. It will be a long journey. I am trying not to make the biggest deal of the mileage and the outright persistence required. It has all been done before, many times. Like the pouring of ice buckets going on all over the world, it is nothing compared to living with an incurable disease. I ride for hope, I will ride for life.

I have every intention of more Life Bucket Challenge adventures.  This will be the first of many.  With the support of kind strangers, dear friends and loving family, I plan to make each one count.  Everyone has a bucket list.  I challenge each and every one of you to also fill your buckets with the grandest moments of discovery.  Dedicate them to those who have to live through you vicariously.  Whether they are suffering from a harsh ailment, unfortunate enough to not have the financial means to see the world, or just not believing in themselves enough as to what can be accomplished.  For those of us who can and possess the will, do it with your most sincerest of passion and just as well, the compassion for those who simply cannot do, whatever the reason.