Every year Bettie Kirkland sends her donation for my MS-150 bike ride. Along with her check this year she sent this note. “It’s been more than 15 years since my husband died with MS, and no one ever told him to ride a bike. But I sure wish they had.”
I was told I have MS in 1981. This will be my 21st consecutive MS-150. Each year I ride for a longer list of people I have personally known or whose stories have been told to me by those who loved them.
Carl Wyberg, Barbara Levin Thompson, Chris Pfennig, Helen Parkinson and Vance Kirkland had their lives diminished and shortened by MS. I ride to honor their memory.
Carl was my student at William Jewell College. He was diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of MS and died at 27, long before he could he could fulfill his hope of becoming a minister.
Barbara lived more than 30 years with MS, adored and cared for by her husband but limited to small and infrequent pleasures.
Chris died young and left grieving parents in his Texas home. Helen died at 90, having lived for years with MS. Vance was a community and civic leader until MS took those things from him and then took him from us.
I ride this 2005 MS-150 in memory of these dear people. I ride also to honor Dennis Kyes. David Andrews is one of our Greater Liberty Riders for MS. Dennis is a member of David’s extended family. Dennis has MS and by his courage in dealing with it has inspired David to make a sizable financial contribution to our fight against MS.
A Tribute to Dennis Kyes
Everyone loved Dennis at the garage. He made everyone feel good. He was a hard worker. If he promised to get something done, he kept his promise. If someone’s car was having problems, he kept working till he got it fixed, even if it meant working way past quitting time.
Dennis knew how to fight. But chose not to. One time a guy provoked a fight. Dennis left. The guy followed him, grabbed his glasses and crushed them under his feet. Dennis grabbed him in a chokehold. Friend had to pull him off. If he had to fight, he knew how to win.
Dennis’s grandfather started the Kyes Garage in Skowhegan, Maine, home of the Maine State Fair. Dennis’s dad, Ernest, worked there when Dennis was born on December 1, 1949. In 1956 the family bought a “cottage” business and turned it into a 24 motel and seven cottages business that was very successful from 1956 through the 1980s.
Ernest Kyes was diagnosed with MS in his late 30s. He learned to use his MS to his advantage. He could play cards and socialize all he wanted to and give orders to workers on what he needed done. He had a huge garden and hired a man to help him that no one else would give the time of day. Ernest died at 64 of cancer.
Dennis was a cheerful, energetic, playful, fun loving boy growing up. “Happy-go-lucky” could have been his nickname. He played football, tennis, swimming and skiing. He loved the competition and he was good enough to bring victory along with his team members in most of these sports.
Dennis was the second of five children. He has an older and a younger brother and the twins, a boy and a girl, just 18 months younger. His sister Diana remembers contests all the time with Dennis. She always won the one leg stand till you drop. He could stay at the bottom of the swimming pool longer. “He could live down there,” she says. Growing up just wouldn’t have been as fun without him. Diana says she depended on him more than he ever knew. Their family was very close.
Dennis took a bad flip while skiing and broke his collarbone. He was skiing a week later, brace and all. A weak collarbone kept him of Vietnam. He graduated from Tech school and stated work for his grandfather at the family garage. His grandfather was so proud when Dennis bought the place. It would stay in the family.
Dennis got married in 1973 and had two sons. He was diagnosed in 1977 with MS, at age 28. He had to quit work in 1989, at age 40. His marriage did not survive. His sons are grown and doing well. He leases the garage and the other units to the building for supplemental income. A few years ago he said he liked to go outside and sit in the sun and daydream. He said it was his God given gift to go into dream land and be skiing again or doing things he loved to do. He can forget about being confined to a motorized wheelchair.
Dennis never much cared for traveling. He loved family and out door activities. He had a home built to their plans, summer and winter sports nearby. He was content. Then MS took it all. But Dennis doesn’t blame anyone for his problems. He deals with life as it comes. He is sometimes angry and depressed. With good reason.
Reading is hard on his eyes. The computer is his means of keeping in contact with the outside world and his sons in California. He prefers to watch TV or visit with friends. Dennis lives at the family motel, surrounded by extended family. His brother Dana and his wife, Pat, along with others tend to his needs. His life has not played out as he had hoped, but he has played the hand he was dealt with a grace and panache that all of us would hope to have.
HateBusters
Box 442
Liberty, MO 64069
Phone: 816-803-8371
e-mail: hatebuster@aol.com
No Boundaries On Our Soul!
