If you haven’t visited the  Be Alert For Bikers website already, I’d like to to re-invite you to check out their well-designed bumper stickers and  t-shirts.  After I wrote about  this  little business-with-a-message last month, Trevor (the Brainchild and Owner) decided to put everything on the website at 20% off, if you mention Vernon’s name at checkout. For the entire month of August! We don’t even know him personally, but he is graciously giving 10% of all sales to our fund.

I know many of you have donated to us already…and I can’t thank you enough.  Truly, thank you from the bottom of my heart! But this is a way for you got get something cool and spread an important message.  I don’t know about every town, but San Clemente needs a few more reminders this summer. Be extra careful, drivers! (And bikers!)

This is Tanya, standing in front of the wall-in-progress at her house, showing off her new stickers that arrived today. She has a few beloved bikers in her life too!

We were both impressed that Trevor keeps business personal!

And back to Tanya.  She and her husband commissioned a mural before Vernon’s accident. In fact, I bought the paint for the project the morning of. They were gracious enough to let me come in and work two months later…at my own pace, a few hours at a time, when I could make it. I’m so thankful for their flexibility and understanding.

I used to do murals a lot. In fact my busiest painting season was when Vernon and I were first together, doing a long-distance email/text/phone/skype relationship. I would talk to him after work and he was always curious and encouraging about what I’d done that day. He had a charming dream at the time that we would go into some kind of artistic restoring and decorating business together. We never did, but working on this now makes me think of those early days talking to Vernon.  It does kind of feel like a long-distance relationship. I guess there is something romantic about that.

But to make the story of this particular gig even more profound for me, Tanya was diagnosed with breast cancer a week or so before the mural was supposed to start. I was so surprised and blown away by her positive attitude, and saw a reason to make that wall extra special—not realizing I  would  soon have some catastrophic news in our family as well.

Just lately, a little at a time, I have been working on Bob and Tanya’s wall,  enjoying spending time with her while she is home recovering from surgery. She had a double mastectomy a few weeks ago and is only now coming out of house-boundedness.  It is such a delight to chat with her while I’m painting (I do have to remember to actually work.) I’ve loved spending time with someone going through raw physical healing (besides Vernon.)  She is an inspiring person to be around. Though she is weak in body, she is STRONG in Spirit.  And we share the belief that though neither of our stories are out of the woods yet, there is always HOPE…and the journey.

And to leave this post on a humorous note, look what arrived in the mail today!