Posts tagged graham homes
The Graham Homes Memorial Ride
14 months ago
The Graham Homes Memorial Ride will be 2,000+ miles of Great British roads over a week at the end of May 2013, raising money for two cancer charities. It will be our biking tribute to Graham, my father in law, recreating something of our John O’Groats to Land’s End trip in 2009, while hopefully making a difference to someone else (and their family) by fundraising.
LincsGeek and I will be joined by four friends, there will five bikes in total, and all of us are keen to raise a decent sum of money for charity. We have chosen Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support as the beneficiaries of our ride. They say cancer affects everyone in some way. Well it affected us in a massive way last summer, and it seems only right that we use this trip to do at least something to try and make a difference to other people who find themselves going through anything like this.
The challenge will take us to the furthest points east, south, west and north of Great Britain (in that order – we’ve decided to go clockwise). We’ve not set our route quite yet, but we like to think we will be able to see a little of the best scenery Great Britain has to offer on our journey (life is all about the journey, after all) and create some new memories on the way.
I have set up a blog that will include everything associated with the bike trip – updates, photographs, profiles, fundraising, information and so on – it will be the place to go for everything GVH Ride focussed. We would love it if you went over to the Graham Homes Memorial Ride blog, subscribe either by email or by putting us in your reader, and share what we’re doing with your friends and family. There’s a link in my side bar too just in case you need it. And of course, most of all, we would appreciate it an awful lot if you’d get out fundraising off the ground by donating. We’ve set up a page on Virgin Money Giving to make it really easy to give money. Thanks!
I’ll Miss You Graham x
1010 months ago
Yesterday I lost my father-in-law Graham to heaven after a short illness.
It is difficult to believe that he is gone. It is difficult to know what to do, what to think. He has already left a Graham-sized hole in our lives and as each minute passes we think of example after example of reasons that make this even harder to deal with. What will we do without him?
As a family we were all very close. I have always been very happy that whenever we’d see my in-laws Graham would greet both my husband and I with “hello children”. It always made me smile. I will miss that.
I believe that Graham is now in a better place, where he is free from the pain and suffering that marred his last months on this planet, where he is at peace. Being a Christian and knowing that Graham was ready to go doesn’t seem to make this any easier, though.
I was going to use this post to record lots of my memories of Graham. I was going to tell you what a wonderful man he was, and how he was liked and admired by so many. How he was a Scout Leader and would sing “Ilkley Moor Bar T’at” at the top of his lungs. How he was a great Christian who cared for others deeply. How he had the most difficult-to-get sense of humour – I never did really know when he was joking, but most of the time I guessed right. How he would just be able to fix motorbikes and cars at the side of the road, and in the pouring rain, while the rest of us looked on. How he was always the one that took the wrong turn at a roundabout resulting in everyone having to stop and wait. How he loved that orange jumper.
But I won’t. What I will say is:
Life is all about the journey. Make the most of yours. Create good memories for yourself and others. Be a beacon of light, for it is our attitude and our actions that make us who we are, for which we are remembered, and for which we are accountable.
Goodnight Graham, sleep well. I will miss you.
Graham Homes, 6 November 1950 – 29 June 2012
