Profile

About: Hello old and new friends! I am ecstatic to be part of the Texas 4000 2023 rider group. I'm deeply passionate about working towards a cancer-free future and hope to make a lasting impact in this organization.

An Austin native, I am in my fourth and final year here at UT and am still in denial that I will be graduating in May. After college, I will be moving to Chicago to work in Management Consulting!

I am involved in a number of organizations on campus in addition to T4K. I am a regular face within UT Jewish Life and have previously served on the executive boards of Texas Hillel and Alpha Epsilon Pi. On a professional level, I am active in Phi Chi Theta, a business fraternity, and the Management Information Systems Association.

Among the many wonderful things in life, I most love my family, my dog Leo, my soccer club Tottenham Hotspur, cooking, discovering new music, a nice cup of coffee, the national park system, and traveling the world.

Why I Ride

There exists at least one moment in everyone’s life that is permanently engraved into their memory, for better or worse. Moments that are regularly mentally surfaced, moments that will be taken to the grave, moments that represent a turning point in one’s outlook on life.

My moment comes in the form of a simple but beautiful expression, one that has since evoked every emotion known to me. I was on a FaceTime call with my moribund grandmother, recalling stories from my adolescent travels with her as she smiled and employed her entire willpower to emit one-word responses. Our calls had been brief as of late, since she could only stay alert for a few minutes at a time. As her attentiveness began to fade away, she mustered up the energy to let out five final words which became my moment: “I’m so proud of you.”

Less than two days later, my grandma passed away from metaplastic breast cancer, and those were the last words she ever said to me.

I was completely broken. I had just entered my junior year of college, and naively assumed that I had developed the mental fortitude to process any event with rationality. However, losing my biggest supporter was a blow that I couldn’t fathom.

My grandma was there for me at every milestone in my life: birth, bar mitzvah, high school graduation. She planted into me the value of loyalty and showing up for those you care about, to which I attribute my devotion to the people closest to me. She had always been my primary support system, never being more than a phone call away if I needed anything under the sun. She exposed me to the beauty the world possesses with trips to destinations far and wide, embedding within me a sense of curiosity and adventure. In fact, we visited Alaska in the Summer of 2015, which we agreed was amongst our favorite places in the world. Biking on her behalf through the expansive state I once cherished with her would be a powerful act of symbolism to me.

Unfortunately, the lessons I took from my grandmother weren’t all preceded by cheerful interactions. She had been battling cancer since I was first exposed to the unforgiving disease at age 10. For the next decade, she underwent multiple chemotherapy treatments in an incessant effort to get rid of her cancer, none of which were successful beyond the short term. During her times of good health, she was a lively character full of personality and chutzpah, yet during her treatments, she resembled a shell of that high-spirited self. It was this pattern that revealed the full injustices of cancer to me. The disease deprives millions of the opportunity to live their most complete life, in place stripping them of their most basic human functions until there’s nothing left. After a 10 year display of fortitude and courage, my grandma could no longer endure the endless pain. Cancer had taken the strongest person I knew.

As the immediate aftermath of her passing went by, it was difficult to not spend my waking hours feeling dejected and apathetic towards the world. Once I developed the levelheadedness to reason with her absence, I felt a peculiar sense of empowerment. My grandmother was a resilient woman from the working-class neighborhoods of Brooklyn who didn’t spend a day of her life feeling sorry for herself, despite the never-ending rounds of chemotherapy. She kept her suffering a secret from my sister and me to protect our innocence; a true stoic. Who was I to feel sorry for myself when it’s the last behavior she would ever exhibit?

Once this sense of empowerment kicked in and took the place of feelings of weakness, I felt an obligation to honor her memory in the most meaningful way possible. How could I ensure that her presence is felt on Earth despite no longer being physically present? Upon a moment of epiphany, there was nothing that could stop me from pursuing involvement in Texas 4000. I showed up to the first information session offered, a mere five days after her death. Within the walls of that room, I felt hope instead of despair, strength instead of weakness, and action instead of apathy. There is no better way to honor my grandmother’s legacy than to advocate towards a future where the grandchildren of future generations never have to confront the harsh reality of their beloved grandparents perishing from cancer.

Every mile of the ride will be for my grandmother. All I want is to keep making her proud.

If you personally know someone who has been affected by cancer, please feel free to reach out at ari.abrams@utexas.edu and share their story. I would be honored to ride on the behalf of any loved one.

To Alaska and back,

Ari