Personal:

Why is Lance Armstrong important to me?

Ironically enough, even though my posts on Lance Armstrong have had very little "value added", they have garnered me more visits that even my most recent submission to the Bonfire of the Vanities.

In recognition of this and in apology, I should at the very least write about how Lance Armstrong and his victories mean a lot to me. Armstrong is a cancer survivor, you see, of testicular cancer that had metastasized into his brain.

My father was diagnosed with bladder cancer only scant days before I was scheduled to fly to France for a three year expatriate assignment. My father insisted I go to France and not stay in the United States for his surgery or the post-surgery chemotherapy. I will never forget the crack I heard in my father's voice when I called him from France shortly before he went into surgery and told him, "Thank you, everything I am is because of you, and I love you." I could tell he was happy, proud, and afraid. How could I ever forget hearing that in my father's voice?

Since that time, my father has endured chemotherapy similar to that undergone by Lance Armstrong. While my father has tried to hide from me the difficulties that this therapy has caused him, when I talk with him on the phone I can hear in his voice the pain and exhaustion, and my mother has told me of the many problems that he has chosen to not discuss with me because he does not want to "worry" me.

Many have accused Lance Armstrong of using drugs to attain the magnificent victories in the Tour de France he has gained since his cancer diagnosis. What these small-minded people do not understand is the incredible pain that chemotherapy induces. Not a short, sharp pain soon relieved, but an unremitting agony that is no less for lacking in acuity, a pain overlain with the fear of death that always accompanies the diagnosis of cancer, no matter how mild a case, an agony and fear that my father is currently enduring silently, as he has endured all the trials in his honorable life.

Once a pain and fear like that has been endured, mere physical pain from exertion means nothing...

Lance Armstrong does not use drugs to overcome the pain of his ascents in the Alps, or of his almost superhuman efforts in uphill time trials. He uses the inner strength he discovered when undergoing treatment for his raging cancer.

Lance Armstrong displays publicly same inner strength my father is showing now, privately. Lance Armstrong is exhibiting to the world that same inner strength that my father is quietly camouflaging by saying that things are "not so bad", an inner strength that I am not present to admire and support because my father did not want me to "miss an opportunity" or "derail my life" because of him.

What my father does not understand (and although I have told him, I will not try to teach him) is that he has given me all of my opportunities, he has laid the rails upon which I live my life. I want to be there with him, but he would feel guilty if I changed my life because of him, not realizing that it is indeed what I want, and so I must instead watch from afar in fear and hope.

So for me Lance Armstrong is a symbol of my hope, the hope that my selfish desire of being on the same planet as my father is fulfilled for many, many years.