Farewell, my friend

It's taken me a long time to get around to finally writing this, but after spending time with Annette this weekend and reflecting on the terrible events of December and January, I decided to post it before my memory began to fade. I apologize for any inaccuracies. 

My best friend Phil Richards died at 5 p.m. on Saturday, January 11, 2014, in the ICU at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley. He had been there since Sunday, December 29, 2013, when he was stuck head-on by a car while riding his bicycle. The driver fled the scene and a suspect was arrested and charged about a week after the accident. The Riverside County Sheriff's office did an amazing job in working to locate the suspect.

The place where he was hit is on a route I have driven hundreds of times over the years on the way to my late mom and dad's home in the Sharondale mobile home community in Calimesa. That section of Calimesa Blvd. is also the route between my house in Redlands and Phil's house in Beaumont and part of the regular route for the Citrus Valley Velo cycling team's Sunday ride. We rode it hundreds of times together, but on this day it would be Phil's last ride.

Like nearly every weekend since we met on the road riding our bikes in 1986, we rode together on the Saturday before his accident. He drove to Redlands and we headed to the bike path on the Santa Ana River Trail. I was on my time trial bike and wanted to do an 80-mile ride without a lot of stops and the bike path was a perfect (albeit boring) place to do it. I had a goal to ride 1,000 miles for the University of California campaign for scholarships and needed to ride 150 miles over the weekend to keep pace with my goal. Along the way, we met up with long-time friend and fellow rider Matt Ryan. At the end of the bike path, I made a u-turn to repeat the traffic-free trail route and Phil decided to ride up the east side of Mount Rubidoux with Matt, then head home. It was the last time Phil and I spoke in person.

He called me that evening, but I wasn't able to pick up and he left a voice mail, which I still have on my phone: "Alright, my man, anything left in the tank after today? [chuckle] Anyways, what is the plan for tomorrow? Give me a jingle when you get a chance, alright? We'll catch ya. Bye-bye." I called him back later and told him I wanted to ride loops on Sunset Drive in Redlands so I could get 70 miles in without much stopping. He said that he was going to drive to Redlands and join the Team Redlands ride from Stell's Coffee Shop. He heard from Matt it was a good training ride. He apparently changed his mind because he called Annette at Trader Joe's where she works Sunday morning to say he was heading out on his own.

I set out that morning to ride on Sunset and connected with our friend Steve Mera. On one of the climbs, I got a call on my cell phone and reached into my pocket to see who it was. The caller ID said, "Annette Richards." Phil would often call me from Annette's phone, so I didn't answer because I was huffing and puffing along a curvy grade and decided to call back when I got to a safer and flatter place. I pulled over a short while later and listened to the voice mail I never wanted to hear. It was Annette and she was very distraught, her voice quivering: "Don, I need you to call me immediately. I need you. Call me."

I called her to learn she was on her way to the hospital after getting a call from the Riverside County Sheriff's office that Phil had been hit by a car and was gravely injured. I rode home and went immediately to Riverside County Medical Center in Moreno Valley. When I arrived, I found Annette with one of her co-workers from Trader Joe's who drove her there from the store. Phil's condition was very serious: his right side was shattered from the impact of the collision. His right arm, leg and ribs were broken and the extent of his internal injuries were not clear. He didn't appear to have any head or spinal injuries, which was a good sign. I tried to be positive and told Annette that broken bones would heal and a lack of injuries to his brain and spinal cord was a good thing. Because of his breathing tube, he was unable to speak in the hospital that day, but was conscious enough to motion to Annette that the pony tail band on the back of his head was bothering him and that he wanted to shift positions in bed.

They repaired his broken leg in surgery that night, but held off on additional surgeries. He was bleeding internally, which it turned out was from an artery behind his liver. They didn't want to risk surgery because of the location and the likelihood he would bleed out before they could get to it. They put pressure on his liver to reduce the bleeding, but he required several transfusions.

When I got to the hospital the next morning, we learned that he had coded overnight. His heart had stopped and the doctor said he massaged it for 15 minutes before he came back. While we were glad he was still with us, that event proved to be the beginning of end because the lack of blood flow to his kidneys caused them to fail. He never regained consciousness and despite a few flutters of his eyes in recognition of our presence in the early days, his body and his brain slowly shut down. As far as I know, his last words were to the EMTs as he lay on road after the accident: "Call my wife."

During those two weeks, family and friends kept a constant vigil and tried to console Annette. Phil's condition was like a roller coaster physically, and we all rode it with him emotionally. Daily dialysis was required as well as surgeries to remove dead bowel tissue. It was decided to take him off of his sedatives to see what kind of brain function he had and the news was not good: he had diffuse axonal injury to his brain, which means it was mostly shut down. We knew his prognosis for living was not good; and if he survived his quality of life would be dismal.

During those two weeks, I kept friends aware of his condition through Facebook, trying to be positive but also being honest about his condition and the treatment he was given. Annette bought a portable CD player and brought some of Phil's classical music favorites to play in his room. We were hopeful, but resigned to the likelihood we would lose him soon. Annette had the do-not-resuscitate (DNR) discussion with the doctors.

I arrived at the hospital a few minutes after 5 p.m. on January 11. There was no one in the waiting room, so I buzzed the nurses outside the ICU and asked to visit him. As the double doors opened, Annette was walking down the hall toward me and looking very distraught. "He's gone," she said and sobbed in my arms. I wanted to cry, too, but my time would have to come later. I cried many times that day and many times since. Mozart was playing in the room when he took his last breath. I went into the room and said my good-bye. I joined Annette and her friends outside the hospital later and we each called loved ones to break the news. I called Investigator Lane of the Riverside County Sheriff's office to tell her the news. They re-arrested the suspect the next day and charged him with second-degree murder.

After Phil died, the Inland Empire Biking Alliance set up a "ghost bike" near the site of the accident and with the help of IEBA President Mark Friis and others, we planned a memorial ride from Stell's to the ghost bike for a moment of silence, then on to Beaumont for a celebration of his life. More than 250 riders attended the ride and more people joined us in Beaumont on Saturday, January 25. The support of family and friends of Phil and Annette was incredible. Her co-workers at Trader Joe's went above and beyond and a gofundme.com campaign raised more than $8,000 to help with Annette's expenses.

John McKee arranged for the masters 55+/60+ race at the Roger Millikan Memorial Criterium on Feb. 9 to be dedicated to Phil. He also was able to find a source for memorial wrist bands for all the riders that day, which were paid for by long-time friend Rick Swanson. Along with John Howard and John Rubcic, I was honored to lead a neutral lap at the beginning of the race in Phil's honor. I walked past the place where we always parked and got ready for the race. It was hard to believe he would never join me there again.

It's hard to put into words what Phil meant to me. "Best friend" doesn't do justice to the kind of trust we shared. I estimate we rode bikes together more than 1,000 times and during those hours talked about anything and everything that was on our minds. We were there for each other through his divorce, relationships and marriage to Annette, my separation from Deena and we shared countless stories of the challenges of having kids. Together, we consumed enough wine to keep several wineries open and brewed enough homemade beer to open our own brewery.

And we raced bikes. With the exception of the early years when we were on different teams, we were teammates and worked together in hundreds of road races (that's us in the photo at the top). In the mid-2000s, our friend John McKee dubbed us the Everly Brothers (Don and Phil) and we took turns attacking the field in trying to initiate a breakaway. Sometimes it worked; mostly it didn't. But it was fun as hell and I was proud to be his teammate and friend.

During the past few years, a series of setbacks for each of us meant less racing together: Phil's shoulder surgery, a heart pacemaker, knee surgery; my prostate cancer. Despite that, he was training for the 2014 racing season and we were planning to race the two-man team time trial at the state championships in May. The race came and went this year and I'm glad that our friends Leo Longo and Rick Lilleberg won the championship jersey.

Leo and Rick are among a few friends I reached out to after Phil died to invite to be part of a new cycling team I organized with my good friends Steve Mera and Bob Estupinan. The mission of PR Velo is simple: ". . . to honor the spirit and preserve the memory of our friend and brother in cycling Phil Richards." Many people have said Phil would be pleased with the idea of the team and the jersey we created to reflect on his life and the things he loved. I don't know about that, but I wish instead he was here with us today to continue his life and enjoy the things he loved. I could rant about the man now charged with murder for hitting him, but Phil would say, "It happened and we can't change it. Don't let the anger ruin your life."

Phil was also adamant about being non-judgmental. As his brother David said at the celebration of Phil's life, he enjoyed the banter of a discussion about anything. He wouldn't take a side, but instead asked people why they thought a certain way and what was wrong with the opposing view. He also had an inordinate capacity for forgiveness. If someone did something or said something offensive, he would simply look past it and forget it. He refused to let negativity creep into his thought processes and when it approached, he simply closed that door and moved on to something better. The middle pocket of the PR Velo jersey sums it up with a word he used often to guide his life: Enjoy.

He was a small man at 5' 4", but had the biggest heart of anyone I've ever known. And he was unbelievably generous. He was always giving me things--food, homegrown vegetables, bike clothing and bike parts, bottles of wine. Right before his accident, he gave a friend and teammate a $1,000 set of racing wheels--just because he needed some.

Phil's influence on me is undeniable and without his presence in my life I would be a very different person than I am today. He loved gardening, organic food ("This is really clean!"), music, and wine among many other things, including his beautiful wife and my very dear friend Annette. A lot of what he loved is integrated into the PR Velo jersey, which I will wear this weekend in a race for the first time. I intend to wear it in many races in the years ahead.

I miss you, brother.