Ann’s Rainbow

My sister Ann passed away from metastasized breast cancer two years ago today - Memorial Day 2011. She is very much missed every day by lots of people. A year ago, I wrote “A New Star Shining Brightly” in her memory. This year, I’m going to talk about her rainbow.

Late in June, 2011, we went up to Mount Tremper, NY for Ann’s memorial service. Our friend Bill came along for support, but with the full house, he elected to stay in a small motel in nearby Phoenicia. In the late afternoon, I gave him a ride over to the motel so that he could check in. After he put his things away in his motel room, we headed the three miles back to Mount Tremper and to Ann’s beloved home.

As we drove along and got part way back, Tremper Mountain loomed over the road and the small town. This mountain was prominent from my sister’s front yard, rising high above Esopus Creek, which flowed 200 feet from her house. Earlier that year, Ann had expressed her wish to see the mountain “turn green” one last time to me. It was visible from the window in her bedroom, where she spent the last few months of her life. And once spring began, I noted that the green was starting, first with a blush at the base of the mountain, and then gradually spreading up the mountain a little more with each visit. By late May, my last time to see her and just a week before her death, Tremper Mountain was entirely green.

From the highway, I glanced up at the top of the mountain as Bill and I drove along.  I was thinking about Ann, and how I wished that she had survived. The weather was a little unsettled, and there were lots of clouds near the top of the mountain. Then suddenly, it happened – a rainbow appeared! It looked as if one end of the rainbow was touching the top of Tremper Mountain. I looked in amazement, pointing it out to Bill. Just as suddenly, the rainbow was gone. It has been visible for less than 30 seconds. If I had not been where I was at that instant in time, I would never have seen it.

Now, I know very well that there are good scientific explanations, using the laws of physics, for why rainbows occur. But I will always believe that, somehow, this was Ann’s rainbow, and that I was meant to be in exactly the spot to see it as it reached over and softly touched the top of her much-loved mountain.

A New Star Shinging Brightly

Tonight on the way home, I listened to one of my favorite carols on the radio: "Silent Night."  It made me think of my sister Ann - Mimi as we called her then - singing that carol as a little girl.  This will be the second Christmas without her since she lost her four year battle with breast cancer.

I wrote this in her memory last May, on the one year anniversary of her death, and decided to post it today.  If you have lost someone you love recently, and mourn them, maybe their star is out there shining near my sister's.

“A New Star Shining Brightly”


You were a daughter and a sister, a mother and a friend;
Whenever someone needed help, your hand you would extend;
You created lovely landscapes; you were an engineer,
Bringing good things to life in your distinguished career

You loved your peaceful mountain home, and the creatures of the earth
You loved a great joke or pun, and would laugh with glee and mirth
You had dreams of your retired life, and rewards for job well done:
To look on Tremper Mountain, aglow from setting sun.

I remember still that day at work when I got your shocking news
Of cancer diagnosis, for I’d walked in those same shoes
I was so sure you would become a survivor just like me
But cancer, it had crueler plans, and ‘twas not meant to be

Remember, Ann, when we were kids, how we would laugh and play?
Not once did it occur to me that you’d be gone some day
But high up in the Heavens, there shines a brand new star
Whose brilliant light beams down upon us brightly from afar

You fought so hard, gave it your all, so brave and tough and strong
Enduring such an awful fight, so difficult and long
You inspired each one of us with your spirit and your grit
Cancer may have won this war but not because you quit

In two-thousand eleven, on the thirtieth of May,
You took your final labored breath, a sad Memorial Day.
To any angel listening, when next you see my sister,
Please tell her how much she is loved, and how much we have missed her.

Remember, Ann, when we were kids, how we would laugh and play?
Not once did it occur to me that you’d be gone some day
But high up in the Heavens, there shines a brand new star
Whose brilliant light beams down upon us brightly from afar

Oh Ann, I miss you every day, and remember you with love
But a new star’s shining brightly in the Heavens far above

Art Ritter
May 30, 2012

Michigan Zombies

A week ago today, I was in Traverse City, Michigan to run / walk the Zombie 5K with my granddaughter and daughter-in-law. Over 1,000 people participated. It was my second timed 5K ever, but I did it for fun, not for timing. I ran the first 3/4 of a mile, then waited for my two family members to show up. I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, there they were, in last place, walking on the sidewalk. I think my nearly five-year-old granddaughter had had enough of racing. So since I was waiting near her house, we grabbed a stroller and pushed her for most of the rest of the 5K. By that time, we were dead last! We caught some of the folks, then stopped for a potty break, and were dead last again! I was determined not to be last, so we ran and walked until we passed at least a hundred or so people. My granddaughter did get out of the stroller and and walk a little of it. My final time was something like 59 minutes! But at least I didn't finish last. Ironically, because they started several minutes after me but we finished at the same time, my granddaughter actually had a faster time than I did! Here are some photos.

My zombie granddaughter and I before walking up to the starting point.
My daughter-in-law is very talented, and did her zombie makeup for the race, along with that of her daughter. No, she is not a giant - I am scooched down a bit.
My daughter-in-law and granddaughter a few minutes before the start.
Zombies prior to the start of the race.
Straggler zombies on 10th Street, nearly last but still several minutes ahead of my grandaughter.

Requiem in Pacem, Ann

On Monday, May 30, I got the news while on vacation that my beloved sister Ann had died that afternoon, after courageously battling breast cancer for 51 months. I knew that she didn't have a lot of time left - just five days before, the oncologist suspended treatment and told her she had a few weeks left. But I never thought that she would die just a week after I last saw her, and when I said goodbye to her that morning, I never suspected that it was the last time I would ever see her.

I wrote this the next afternoon, scribbling it out on paper on the cruise ship and deciding not to edit it, since it reflected my emotions at the time without any assistance from rhyme searching software. I know I will miss Ann the rest of my life.

"For Ann"

Today, Ann, is the first day since the day I was born
That you're not here upon this earth, and I feel so forlorn
Perhaps some time there'll come a day when of grief I am shorn
But if so, that is not today, as from your death I mourn.

Remember times when we were kids, and we would laugh and play?
Not once did it occur to me that you'd be gone someday.
Though sunny where I got the news, inside 'twas dark and grey
You're at eternal rest now, but from us you've gone away.

For months now, I have struggled to not break down and weep
I'd watch your face with sadness as exhausted you would sleep
Your grit and spunk inspired me as you climbed a hill so steep
And every step along the way, your courage did you keep.

That evil cancer hit you hard in this, your final, year
I came as often as I could, though you lived nowhere near
I feared that someday in the spring, I'd lose my sister dear
'Twas on the thirtieth of May the sad news did I hear.

Now death has come and taken you so very far from me
But as long as I can draw a breath, then in my heart you'll be
Oh, God and Blessed Mary, I beseech you, hear my plea:
Grant my beloved sister joy and peace eternally!

Art Ritter
May 31, 2011

The Secret Passageway

When I was a kid growing up near Philadelphia, my brothers and sisters and I used to love to go to the city’s museums. One of these was an excellent science museum, the Franklin Institute. The exhibit we liked the most there when we were little was a model human heart that was big enough to walk through. We would enter the right atrium, pretending to be an oxygen-starved red corpuscle returning from the body’s hinterlands by way of the vena cava. We would travel through to the right ventricle, and squeeze through the pulmonary artery to the lungs. Picking up a load of oxygen from an alveoli, we’d return to the left atrium through the pulmonary vein, travel through the mitral valve to the left ventricle, and move into the arched aorta to exit the heart. Sometimes we would run through the heart as quickly as we could several times in a row until our father lost his last remnant of what masqueraded as patience and would yell at us to cease and desist.

One day when I was about eight, I entered the heart, my sister Ann and her friend Annabelle just behind me. I moved quickly through all its narrow and kind of spooky passages, determined that my sister would not pass me. When I made that final turn out of the aorta, they were standing at the heart’s exit. “How did you get here ahead of me?” I asked in total bewilderment. “We took the secret passageway,” my sister told me. I pleaded and begged to be shown where it was, but my sister insisted that I would have to find it myself. Do you know that every time I went into that heart for years, I searched for the secret passageway? I’d poke around in every little nook and cranny, examining them from every angle, fruitlessly searching for anything that might be the start of this wondrous shortcut through the heart. Of course, I never did find it, and realized years later how my older and smarter sister had duped me!
How I wish I could go up to Ann’s home now, and walk in to see her standing in her kitchen, no longer hooked up to oxygen, cooking something for her guests. Or maybe she would be sitting in her living room, sewing one of the beautiful fabric landscapes that she learned how to do in the last decade. I would give her a huge hug and ask in astonishment “How did you get here? How did you get past breast cancer?”

“Oh, I took the secret passageway,” she would reply. “It is one that cancer doesn’t know about and can’t find.”

But I know that cannot be, for just as in the big model heart, there are no secret passageways to get us past danger or trouble or illness. It is my fervent hope that someday soon – certainly by the time my nieces are my sister’s age or by the time my granddaughter is a grown woman, there will be effective and safe cures for the terrible disease of breast cancer that will in effect accommodate escape by way of a secret passageway.

Note: Exactly one week after I penned these words, on the train back home after visiting my sister for what would turn out to be the last time, she died from metastasized breast cancer.

A Letter to My Grandfather

Dear Grandy,

This Saturday, I will be running and walking a half-marathon in Seattle, Washington. That date will be 51 years to the day from your death from lung cancer. I still remember the phone ringing, my mom answering and saying a few words but mostly listening, and then hanging up the phone and starting to cry. It was a sad time for all of us.

I have thought many times what it meant to me to have you in my life for my first seven and nearly eight years of my life. You were my only grandparent still alive at my birth, or even close to it. You were a huge part of my early years in so many ways. One of my favorite childhood memories was you taking me for haircuts (which I didn’t especially like) and then out to lunch afterwards at the Horn and Hardart’s cafeteria. I thought it was so cool that they had all these trays of food and you could just point at what you wanted. It was fun spending time with you, just the two of us, while we were there.

You also used to let me beat you in checkers. Of course at the time as a six year old, I didn’t realize you were letting me win. I just thought I was the butt-kicking checkers king of the world! You would set up the board in such a way that I could jump 2 or 3 of your checkers with one move, then you’d say things like “Wow! That was a great jump! How did you do that?”

You loved working in the vegetable garden, and especially taking care of your beautiful rose garden behind the kitchen. For years afterwards, even though we didn’t take proper care of it, I would think of you when roses would bloom there. You’d walk me to and from school every day my first year, and maybe part of my second. Then you got ill and we watched you get weaker and weaker. My folks moved your bedroom to the first floor of our house, and eventually you had to go to a hospital. It wasn’t long after that when you passed away. It was scary and sad seeing you so ill.

Now you are long gone, but you have never been forgotten by me or by my brothers and sisters. I’m a man now, and I’m a cancer survivor, because things have changed in these 51 years. Cancer is still a dreaded and often deadly disease, but survival is no longer rare. I hope that by racing for a cure again this Saturday in Seattle, I am making one tiny step in the ultimate elimination of incurable cancers. I hope you would be proud of me, were you able to be here. But maybe you would just be thinking “Now why would anyone ruin a perfectly good day by running 13.1 miles if no one was chasing them?”

Thanks for being such a big part of my life. I will be thinking of you this June 26 as I race in Seattle, Washington.

Love,
“Little Art”

P.S. I am a grandpa now, too. I was there at my granddaughter's birth, lucky to still be alive. And you know, someday when she is a bit older, I just might let her think she is the butt-kicking checkers queen of the world!

On the Day You Were Born

On the day you were born, it was love at first sight
When you popped into the world just before dawn’s first light
“It’s a fine baby girl,” the tired doctor said
As your mother, exhausted, lay back in her bed

You had ten little fingers, and ten tiny toes
Two eyes of bright blue, and a cute little nose
A fine head of dark hair, which would later turn blond -
A perfect new babe as this November day dawned

Later that day, I held you in my arms
Utterly, totally won by your charms
My precious granddaughter, with your life all ahead:
A sweet, much-loved baby, with nothing to dread

You gripped one of my fingers in your tiny hand
As you slept in my arms. Oh, the feeling was grand!
I gazed at your face, so peaceful in sleep
And wished from all harm you I could always keep

I smiled as I wondered how your life will be
Oh, what things will you learn? What wonders you’ll see?
Will you love art and music, and to read a great book?
Will you go through your life with a cheerful outlook?

Will you be kind to others, both two legged and four?
Will you hike in the mountains and down by the shore?
Will you like to play sports? Will you do well in school?
Will you do the right thing, even though it's not “cool?”

Will I dance at your wedding, should you fall in love?
As I pondered these things, I thanked God up above
That I’m alive and quite healthy, and still on His green earth
And present, right here, on the day of your birth

We cried as we left you, the very next day
For we had to return to our home far away
But no matter how many long miles we’re apart
I will carry my love for you deep in my heart

To my granddaughter on her third birthday, with love, from "Poppa Art"

Seven Amazing Experiences Since Surviving Cancer

This coming May officially marks seven years as a cancer survivor, since the date is noted from the date of the official diagnosis. For me, the diagnosis of Hodgkin lymphoma was made in late May, 2002, but in reality, since an X-Ray detected a large mass in the center of my chest in late April, I clearly had cancer in April, March, February, or perhaps even January. So I would guess that right about now marks seven years as a survivor.

Thus, I thought I would write some posts, one every week or so for a while, noting seven things that could not have occurred in my life had I not been fortunate enough to survive. If you are doing Team in Training, or a similar cause, or you are donating to the fight against cancer, you are helping others like me create their own memories that would not have happened otherwise. Thank you!

For my first of these "seven year posts", I will write about seven amazing experiences I have had since surviving cancer. It is very difficult to pick only seven, and even tougher to rank them, so I am presenting them in chronological order.

1. Returning to work – This first one may seem odd, but when one has been too ill to work for six months, and living on 60% of their income as disability, this is a very big deal. Don’t get me wrong – a lot of folks don’t have a job or disability, and I was very fortunate to have 60% of my income coming in. But in any event, it felt great to go back to work to my job at the time with Computer Resource Team, Inc. They treated me very well during my entire diagnosis and illness, even though I am sure it affected their bottom line. Going back to work let me feel like I was helping the company out by billing revenue again, and also was a huge step in living a normal life again.

2. Climbing Mount Tumbledown – My story about this is posted here on my hiking blog, so I won’t elaborate. But in August 2003, hiking this Maine mountain with Mary and great friends was my statement that I was not only a survivor, but I had returned to health. A year before this day, I was lying in a hospital room, incredibly sick, and now, I was standing on top of a mountain! And as a bonus, we got to celebrate the Big Five-O for one of our best friends!

3. Going to the World War II Memorial – My step-dad, Stuart, was a proud WWII vet, and even though he was getting too weak to walk a lot, it meant so much to take him to this memorial to his, and his comrades, incredible sacrifices during this horrific war. There was not a dry eye in our group – me, Mary, my sister Ann, Stuart’s friend Anne, and Stuart's daughter Joy – when Stuart turned and saluted the section of the memorial dedicated to Buna in New Guinea, where he served. And it was so touching to see other old veterans come up to him and engage in conversations – like long lost comrades being reunited with a common bond.


4. Anchorage Marathon for Team in Training – Just a week or two after the experience with the WWII Memorial, I headed off to the Land of the Midnight Sun to do my first ever marathon on June 18, 2005. It was exactly 3 years, two weeks, and two days after I had started chemotherapy. Reaching that finish line, 26.2 miles from the start, as a cancer survivor was a feeling of joy that I don’t think I can adequately describe. Here is a link to a story about it that I wrote for one of the TNT newsletters. It was perhaps the proudest day of my life!

5. Trip to Glacier, Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone National Parks – When I had cancer, we had to cancel a planned trip to Yellowstone. So when we went there in September 2005 for two weeks, it was a wonderful feeling to see places I had wanted to see all my life. We hiked all over, saw incredible scenery, and amazing wildlife. Among the later were grizzly bear, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, black bear, mule deer, bison, elk, and grey wolves. This probably goes down as my favorite vacation ever.

Bearhat Mountain in Glacier National Park

Where the Buffalo Roam - Yellowstone

Impressive Mountains - The Grand Tetons! So named by very lonely French fur trappers, as the name in French means "The Large Breasts"!

6. Being Present at the Birth of my Granddaughter – In November, 2006, Mary and I were present when our granddaughter was born. Have you ever experienced love at first sight? Well, I did when that little girl popped into the world early that morning. I got to hold her on the day of her birth. Even though she lives far away, I hope to be a big influence on her life, and am so grateful to have survived to know her.


7. Family Reunion at the Beach – My brothers and sisters and I have been scattered to the winds since we grew up. So even though we all get along, not once in about 40 years had the five us been in one place at the same time. There were several times when four of us could get together, but never five. This changed in September 2008 when we had a family reunion at Virginia Beach. A great time was had by all, and great memories created for all who were present – about 20 of us in total.

These are just seven of many wonderful moments in my life that I would not have had were I not fortunate enough to be a cancer survivor. In my next "seven things" post, I will discuss seven great TNT memories.

Requiem in Pacem, Stuart!

My step-father, Stuart, passed away last night, less than three weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer. I had written briefly about Stuart in my post of about three weeks ago, “Y’all Can Stop Now!”.

Stuart was a great guy. I have known him since 1971, and he was like a second father to me. He and my mother married in 1974.


Since her death in 1992, Stuart has remained close to me and to my brothers and sisters. We are all tremendously saddened by his death. It is one more reminder of how awful cancer is, and how it must ultimately be defeated! I hope that my upcoming Team in Training Season and marathon will be one more nail in cancer’s coffin!

Stuart grew up in Syracuse, and I always liked hearing his tales of growing up there. He always remained fond of his native town, where he played ice hockey as a boy. He also got to see George Gershwin perform a concert there just a year before this great composer’s tragic and early death. Eventually, Stuart went to college at the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1943. Go Quakers! Hurrah for the Red and the Blue! One remarkable thing about Stuart is that he left college after completing his degree requirements but well before graduation to join the Army. He went off to the Pacific War, serving in New Guinea. With no cream, milk, or sugar there, he always had his coffee black the rest of his life. And after weeks with little to eat but canned apricots due to a logistical snafu, he couldn’t even stand to look at an apricot the rest of his life.

After the war, Stuart worked in international business. He told me many tales of travels around the world on business. Eventually, he was in the jewelry business about the time he and my Mom met, and stayed in that line of work until his retirement.

He and I got to numerous football games over the years on my travels to Philadelphia to watch Penn at Franklin Field, and also a few games at Villanova out on the “Main Line”. All his life, Stuart had a true love for his Alma Mater. I have great memories of these times with him, and of listening and discussing classical music which we both love. We also always had many discussions about sports and politics, both of which Stuart had a deep interest in. And when were relaxing at his home, we enjoyed watching sports together and just chatting.

In 1993, Penn had a special ceremony at their graduation where they presented diplomas to the men who, 50 years previously, had missed their graduation ceremony to serve our country. That meant so much to Stuart.

In 2005, we met Stuart and several other family members in Washington DC so that we could take him to the World War II Memorial. That was such a moving experience – to see him remembering his comrades and the suffering, and how he and other aging veterans greeted one another. I am so glad that we had the opportunity to take him there.


I am saddened that Stuart is no longer with us, but I am a better man for having been lucky enough to know him and to be his step-son.

Y’all Can Stop Now!

To my family – y’all can stop now. Any time. Right now would be nice. I think that we have had enough cancer in the family, and now with this latest one, you have gone over the top. Sure, you get your name on my next purple marathon shirt, but it isn’t worth it. Trust me! Of course I will think of each of you with love on the day of the race, but still, I so wish that none of you had to go on my shirt.

So knock it off, will ya?

Two years ago, I had one family member’s name on my race shirt, my sister-in-law Christine. She is a double cancer survivor, breast and ovarian, at a time when she had a very poor chance of surviving. That was nearly 20 years ago.

Then this past year, I had to add my sister Ann, for breast cancer. That was bad enough. But when my next race comes around in 2009, I will have five names of family members on there! Three of them have come since January of this year! My brother Chris was diagnosed with prostate cancer in February. My step-mother Rhoda was diagnosed with breast cancer in March. And now, two days ago, I learned that my step-father Stuart has terminal lung cancer.

Five names on my next shirt of people living with cancer in my own family, three of them this year. And that doesn’t include the guy wearing the shirt! I think that is quite enough in one family for now. I will be honored to wear your names in my next race, but I sure wish it was for something else.

My Sister’s Battle

When I had lymphoma in 2002, one of the things I felt was that at least I was taking care of my four siblings chances of getting cancer for the next 20 years or so. Sadly, I was very wrong about that. In February, 2007, I got a message from my sister Ann that she almost certainly had breast cancer. I had gone through my own cancer very stoically, but my sister’s news had me fighting back tears, even at work, for several weeks.

Ann has had a very rough go of it. Her treatments have made my six months of chemotherapy look like a walk in the park. She had HER-2 positive breast cancer, which was very hard to treat until recently, when a new drug, Herceptin, was developed. Unfortunately, we would learn that her cancer was resistant to this treatment. She has now gone through 17 straight months of treatment, including 4 totally different chemotherapy regimens, a mastectomy, and a couple of months of radiation. She had a whole new cancer form while on her third chemotherapy, which was designed to prevent new cancers from metastasizing. She has been a real trooper throughout it all.

Ann’s name was the first name that I wrote on my Arizona Marathon shirt, and any time the training or the race got tough, all I had to do was think of what she had been enduring. She is still far from out of the woods, although the combination of radiation, mastectomy, and the fourth chemotherapy has us hopeful that she is done with all this very soon.

Having my sister go through cancer so soon after mine just affirmed the importance of raising money to fight cancer. I knew that I couldn’t go into full bore fund raising mode for breast cancer so soon after raising over $11,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, but I wanted to do something for this cause.


Here we are in April, 2007, a couple of months after her diagnosis.

A Special Birthday

November 18, 2007. I was privileged to spend my granddaughter's first birthday with her in Michigan this past week. I trained when I could, and got in a couple of 9 mile workouts. There is a great foot path in Traverse City that actually goes for nearly 30 miles. It is a lot colder in Michigan than in Virginia, as one might suspect. There was even some training in snow flurries. Now that I am back in Virginia, I got in six miles today. I was training in shorts and a tee, after driving through a snow storm in Pennsylvania last night on the way home from Michigan. It is amazing what differences a few hundred miles makes in the weather, from a near blizzard to sunny and the 60's. Today's training was going to be 10 miles, but I cut it short when my hamstrings started getting sore for some reason. Every time I try to add in more running, I seem to damage something slightly.

The visit to our granddaughter was so much fun. She is starting to walk a few steps and is curious about everything. Here she is enjoying her cake!

Back to Training

November 11, 2007. I got in most of my training miles this week for a change, including a 12 mile walk in Deep Run Park enjoying the fall foliage. I am currently in Michigan, getting ready to celebrate the first birthday of our granddaughter, Aja. I am grateful to be able to see her. A lot of people who get cancer never get the opportunity to see their grand children. I am one of the lucky ones, because I am healthy again.

Here is a photo of her with me taken last February when she was three months old. She has changed and grown so much in the nine months since this photo was taken. She is a lot of fun.

Today is Veterans' Day. If you are a veteran, or serving now, thank you for all that you did.