GRAND RIVERS, Ky. (AP) - When the going gets tough - as it inevitably will on a bike ride that covers more than 2,600 miles - cyclist Bill Conner returns to the reason he’s making his trek.
Conner’s daughter, 20-year-old Abigail “Abbey” Mae Conner, died in January after she and her brother were found unconscious in a hotel pool in Cancun, Mexico. But Abbey’s legacy has lived on: she was an organ donor, and her organs, eyes and tissue have been given to four men in need.
Conner began the journey from Madison, Wisconsin, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on May 22, the day after Abbey’s brother, Austin, graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The ride is meant to help Conner deal with his grief and, most importantly for the father, to honor his daughter and raise awareness about organ donation.
“I can’t quit. I’ve got to find a way to get it done, because my daughter didn’t have a choice in how she left this world, and so I don’t have a choice either. I’ve got to get to Florida for her,” Conner said during an interview last Sunday from Grand Rivers, where he’d stopped to rest.
Conner rides his Trek bicycle between 60 and 65 miles six days a week, stopping for a break every Sunday. He said he’d been cycling for four or five years before his daughter’s death, and the idea for the trip came to him only a few days after she passed.
“I had to do something to honor her, and that’s what I came up with,” he said. “This is about my daughter. It’s allowing me to carry the torch for her. This is something she’d want me to do, to have people realize how important organ donation is.”
Conner aims to make it to Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Medical Center, which helped with the process of donating Abbey’s organs, by July 10. He said the hospital is planning an arrival celebration that will involve releasing his daughter’s ashes into the Atlantic Ocean.
“I’m going to introduce Abbey to quite a few people,” he said. “That’s how we’re going to honor her and let her free.”
He said he and his daughter, who was a junior at University of Whitewater, talked about the importance of organ donation when she was still in high school. She had been a registered donor since she received her driver’s license.
One of the stops along Conner’s route will put him in touch with a young man in Baton Rouge who received Abbey’s heart. The identities of organ recipients aren’t made known to the family, but letters were sent to them, and a 20-year-old college junior named Jack responded.
“We’ve talked on the phone a couple of times,” he said.
“I told him, ’Don’t take this the wrong way, but Jack, you’re part of the family and I do love you already,’ because Abbey is living inside of him.”
Conner said his trip has brought him into contact with several people who have lost children, as well as with many generous strangers who have provided him with a bed, a shower and a meal.
“It’s been amazing,” he said.
One of his favorite moments, though, occurred during his first stop, in Platteville, Wisconsin, where he met a man whose brother was the beneficiary of an organ donor.
“That puts everything in perspective, if you can imagine being in need of an organ to live,” Conner said. “That is what people can do for others.”
Conner has set up a GoFundMe campaign to support the nonprofit Donate Life America and is continuing to look for hosts who could offer a place to stay on his solo journey.
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