At 3 years old, my little sister was a crazy person. Impossible to stop, Tatum would sneak into my parents room to model her favorite necklaces from my mom’s jewelry box, choose to paint her own face instead of the endless supply of coloring books provided to her, and climb the dining room chairs so often that my parents had to tie them to the table. It was a shock when these irrepressible explosions of misbehavior and belly laughs began to cease. Eventually, bruises started to cloud Tatum’s legs, and neither faces nor coloring books were being painted. My parents took her to the hospital, and she was diagnosed with ALL Leukemia on July 13th, 2009.

The next five years were full of chemotherapy, radiation, and relapse. We used to stick googly eyes all over Tatum’s bald head. She would come home from the hospital and sleep all day long. My 6 year old self was constantly jealous of the Barbies she would bring home from each ER visit, because cancer through the eyes of two sisters aged 3 and 6 was, of course, centered around who played with which doll. Tatum’s leukemia truly did become the seminal yet normal center of our childhoods and family. We both started to homeschool, stayed away in our family pod of four to avoid any possibility of Tatum catching colds or the flu, and began to settle into a life that is alien to me now, but was all I knew then. She relapsed after a full round of treatment, we moved to Fort Worth to be near Cook Children’s Medical Center, and she has now been in remission for 10 years.

I ride for those 5 lost years. Tatum had to lose 5 years of true living, of true kidhood, to get well. Her playground was sterile and beeping and painful. I ride for my mother’s father Mike, who I cannot remember because cancer took him before I could even walk. I ride for friends’ mothers and grandmothers, for great-aunts and uncles, for past teachers, for the kids I can remember but won’t ever be able to talk to again. I ride for the fact that if I listed all of the names I have in my head, too many lines would fill. I ride for the goal of a cancer-free world. I ride for communities who need to be shown knowledge, hope, and charity.

The greatest thing I have is the ability to call my sister and hear her talk about how ballet class went, about the math test she’s nervous about, about the concert tickets she wants to buy, about the sweater she is crocheting. I am so thankful. It is not a gift given to everyone, but it is with the hope that one day it will be that I pursue this endeavor.

Thank you so much for reading, and again, I would truly love to hear any stories of those I can ride for at ollierose2003@gmail.com.

To Alaska and back,
Olivia Flaming