“Can Mommy read to me?”
But Emily — an Ohio State Hall of Fame athlete and the boy’s 38-year-old mother — died last March after a 4 ½-year battle with breast cancer.
In her last year, even as her condition worsened, she found several ways to stay connected to her son and husband after she’d be gone. One was to make videos for Bryce. Scott said he now uses them judiciously because there have been a few times the boy has struggled with the loss:
“He’s had a couple of spells where he says, ‘I want my mommy.’ Usually, it’s when he’s tired or hurt or scared and he might cry for 30 seconds or so. And I tell him, ‘I miss her too, but she’s with us all the time.’ And that seems to work.”
The other night the boy wasn’t driven by despair, just daily routine, so Scott pulled out one of the videos and suddenly there was Emily reading a bedtime story for her boy.
“At the end of the video she tells Bryce, ‘OK, put your hand on your heart,’ ” Scott said as his own voice began to waver with emotion. “She said, ‘You feel that? That’s me. I’m right there!’ And you know what? Bryce was content and he went right to sleep.”
• Saturday, Emily will be there for Scott, not only in his heart, but on his back.
He’ll be wearing a riding jersey she designed for her Noble Circle bike team last year, but he has modified it for this Pelotonia. He’ll have her photo on the back, along with a picture of one of her beloved sunflower fields, and there’ll also be the words: “Amore Tu.”
“I lived in Italy a while and she lived with me and that became our way of saying ‘I love you,’ ” he said. “It might not be exactly the way to say it, but it was our way.”
Scott will lead her team this year in the annual bike event across Ohio that raises millions of dollars for the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State and the Solove Research Institute.
He’ll ride the Trek bike Emily rode in the past three Pelotonias and he’ll wear her riding gloves.
“I won’t wear her helmet,” he smiled. “That was a little too snug.”
Actually, it wasn’t long ago that this whole idea seemed an ill fit for him. While he plans to ride 100 miles Saturday, up until a few months ago he had never ridden more than 10. In fact, when Emily did her first Pelotonia, he initially was against the idea.
That quickly changed when he saw what the ride did for her and others and the transformation was completed early this year when devastating reality set in.
Emily was a microbiologist at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a loving mom who had been an elite athlete. A high school swimming star in California, she became an All American synchronized swimmer at Ohio State, which won four national titles when she was there. Later she swam for the Dayton Synchronettes.
Even as her illness worsened, her athlete’s physique and strong heart made her seem far more fit than she was.
“I never believed she would die,” Scott said. “I never gave up hope. But the last day we were at Ohio State, the doctors told her, ‘We can’t do anything more for you.’ And they said she had about a month left.
“On the ride back home, she asked, ‘Will you do something for me? Will you become a virtual rider and keep my peloton (riding team) going?’ ”
A virtual rider doesn’t actually ride, but instead raises funds and provides other support.
“I told her, ‘No, I won’t — I’m going to ride the 100 miles myself!’ ” Scott said. “When I said that, she lost it. It was a moment I’ll never forget.”
More than memories
Since the Pelotonia began in 2008, it has raised more than $61 million.
“Cancer affects one of every two men and one of three women,” Scott said. “And the only way we’re going to beat this is by a grassroots effort like this. A lot of the government funding just is not there.
“With the Pelotonia, sponsors take care of any other expenses that arise, but every penny the riders raise goes straight to cancer research at Ohio State.
“They have brought in over 150 specialists in the field. With all that expertise, all that energy there, I truly believe Ohio State will a place to solve cancer. I’ve witnessed first-hand what they do.
“We had five years with Emily after she was diagnosed. We were so blessed. If we hadn’t been at Ohio State, if we’d been somewhere else, who knows? She could have been gone in five months.
“And Bryce never would have gotten to know her.”
As it appears, the little boy has gotten more than just memories from his mom.
“Over the Fourth of July, we went out to San Diego to visit Emily’s parents and her mom signed Bryce up for six days of swimming lessons,” Scott said. “The only thing we told the instructor was that his mom had passed away before she got a chance to teach him to swim.
“Afterward, the girl came up to us and said, ‘I’ve been teaching kids for seven years and he has progressed further in six days than any kid I have ever had.’ That’s when I told her about Emily’s swimming background and she said, ‘Well, it looks like it’s in his genes.’ ”
Grit, courage, love
When Emily signed up to ride her first Pelotonia with former OSU swimming teammate Gina Pietrus Spohn, Scott said he was “not a supporter at all.”
He had heard how a Pelotonia rider had been killed the year before in Hocking County when she was hit by a guy in a pickup truck.
“I thought it was selfish of Emily. How could she be so sick and know she might die and yet take this other chance?” Scott admitted.
His attitude changed when he heard other people’s stories and then saw the way Emily — a competitive athlete all her life — blossomed with the challenge.
The first year, Emily and Gina rode 50 miles, and in the second — riding with a team of former and current OSU synchronized swimmers — Emily went 100 miles.
Since then the synchronized swimming program has launched its own spin off the Pelotonia called Sync Cancer. People are asked to swim a mile, which is what Emily and Scott did last fall.
For last year’s Pelotonia, Emily put together the team from Noble Circle, the cancer support group for women in the Miami Valley.
“I was very concerned,” Scott said. “She was undergoing intense chemotherapy and hadn’t done any training. We both agreed if she could make 25 miles, she’d be happy. And at every rest stop I told her she didn’t have to keep pushing — no one expected anything from her — but she was on cloud nine. The energy and camaraderie is amazing.”
At about the 55-mile mark, she rode up alongside a female OSU student who was riding for her mother who had died of cancer, and they struck up a quick friendship.
Scott said Emily asked her: “How did you do it? How did you handle losing your mom? My son is likely going to lose me and I want to know what I can do to make it better for him.”
Emily ended up riding 75 miles last year.
Along with grit and courage, she showed total love for Scott and Bryce.
She laid a good foundation for both of us,” Scott said.
After she died, Emily didn’t want “a memorial,” Scott said, she wanted “a party in the backyard with good food and a certain band we liked.”
Scott put up five big tents behind their Yellow Springs home and put down wood floors because it was early March and it had snowed two days earlier.
“I was flipping out trying to get it all ready,” he said with a grin. “But that was my therapy. She knew I’d need a project, something to fill my mind with, to get through those first days and boy did that happen. We had 300 people show up. And it was an awesome celebration.”
Now Emily has given him another project. He has been going on training runs with the other Noble Circle riders and last weekend they had a pep rally at a Yellow Springs bike shop.
Saturday, with Bryce ringing a cowbell and waving pom-poms at every stop, he plans to make the long, circuitous ride from Columbus to Gambier.
“Look, this is the hand I was dealt and, like I learned from Emily, you can do one of two things,” he said. “You can fold or you can play.
“And, man, I’m playing.”
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