Even after all this time The sun never says to the earth, You owe Me. Look what happens with a love like that, It lights up the Whole Sky.

Hafiz

One of the characteristics that sets human beings apart from other species is our ability to tell stories. We have language, which allows us to communicate ideas, projecting them into an unknown future. This has both positive and negative effects on us. At its best, it allows us, through our drive to cooperate, whcih derives from empathy, to create great cultures. At its worst, it can, through propaganda and demagoguery, sow the kind of fear and division we have become all too familiar with in the last decade. As the climate emergency worsens, I expect that both of these effects will become stronger.

I’ve been thinking about optimism and hope. The Marxist scholar “[Terry] Eagleton argues that one does not need to embrace optimism, which is logically absurd, nor pessimism, which is inherently defeatist, but rather hope, which signals the fact that there are still battles left to care about.” PMC projects a future in which the scourge of cancer no longer exists. This is a hopeful vision and one I am happy to be a part of.

This year my former colleague Kelly Lord joined the Turkey Hill Gang. In November 2024, Kelly lost her husband Chris, an avid cyclist, to a very rare form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I invited her to join the Turkey Hill Gang because I have found the community that has formed around it to be incredibly supportive and life-affirming. Being part of it has helped me tolerate my grief. I want that for Kelly.

With Trump (Musk) in power once again, disdain for science and, more broadly, expertise is back. This time, with opportunist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at the head of HHS, that disdain is back with a vengeance. There are very valid concerns about cuts to funding in cancer research, including in the area of mRNA vaccines, one of which shows promise as a cure for pancreatic cancer. Sadly, this makes PMC and other similar organizations more necessary than ever. It also makes your voice, through protest and your vote, more important than ever.

A world in which PMC is unnecessary seems farther away this year. But I maintain the hope that we will get there.

Why do I ride?

I ride because I miss my wife and friend, Dawn Anne Jahn Moses;

to express my gratitude to the multitude of neighbors, friends, family, colleagues, and health professionals at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s who helped Dawn do what she wanted to do (she was cared for by many, but I want to name a few of those she was closest to: Charlie Fuchs, Robin Sommers, Mary Maloney, Jane Bausch, Anne Chiavacci, Matt Kulke): extend her days with us, in both quantity and quality;

for Georgia and Henry.

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