It Started with a Motorcycle Ride

 It was a simple day in May, the weather forecast predicted sunshine, it had all the possibilities of being a beautiful day. I decided that this would be a perfect time to call in sick. I called a good friend and persuaded her to come along with me. Things looked excellent for a ride in the country.

    The day was just as I hoped, sunshine, a beautiful woman hanging onto me, with the wind in our faces. We headed south towards Greene County but in reality, we were going where ever the bike led us.

    I had a Kawasaki KZ400, a 2 cylinder motorcycle. It was brown and shiny, powerful enough to carry a passenger and to handle the highways. It was the first vehicle I ever bought new. It was reliable and treated me well.

    The day passed quickly, to this day I can still remember going past Canonsburg and the Meadows on route 79, and driving along curvy two lane roads past farms and meadows. Yelling at cows we passed and laughing at whatever tickled our fancies.

    All the wonders of the day quickly slipped behind me when I came back home.

    Getting off my bike, a neighbor came across the street enquiring about how I was doing. Curious about his concern I was surprised to hear that my father had been taken by ambulance to the hospital. This hadn’t been the first time this had happened but his tone implied more. Going into the house, my mother informed me that my Dad had passed on earlier in the afternoon.

    I had been on the road, enjoying the sounds and feelings of a motorcycle between my legs. We hadn’t given any thoughts to anything that might be happening back at home, we were out enjoying the day and life. There was no reason for us to worry; there was no difference between that morning and the morning that preceded it. We hadn’t mentioned to anyone where we were going. My mother had presumed that I had gone to work. When she called, they had no idea where I was.

    This was in 1976, long before cell phones and instant and constant communication. I came home to a world that had changed without my even knowing it.

    My father and I weren’t close in those days. There weren’t any serious problems between us other than a boy/man who was growing up and rebelling against the knowledge my father was trying to share with me. I was experiencing new things on my own, the opportunities seemed endless. Perhaps the idea that he was so close to the end of his life while I was so close to the beginning of mine might have played into it.

    Death was no stranger to me; my parents were a lot older than my friend’s moms and dads. My parents’ siblings were older than them and more than a few of their families had passed on. Funerals weren’t unknown to me as a child.

    The families lived far away and so we didn’t visit much. My cousins were older than me and so I didn’t have anyone my age to hang out with during visits. Funerals were boring, sitting in a room with a group of adults I barely knew. It seemed to take us forever to get to the funeral homes, all the while dressed in my uncomfortable “Sunday clothes”.

    Our motorcycle ride in the country that day has stuck with me for decades, almost five of them now. I have held a feeling of guilt ever since that day. There were things I could have done differently. I could have told my mother where I was going, I could have said a proper good-bye to my dad rather than just running out the door like so many times before. I might have been able to be there and help comfort my mother instead of causing her more worry. These and so many other thoughts are something I have to carry with me, this is how it happened and now it’s my burden.

    The saying goes, “You don’t realize what you have until it’s gone”. This is so true. Over the years it becomes more and more evident to so many of us!

Though gone nearly 50 years, my father still lives with me. I see him every spring when the flowers he planted in the yard start to sprout. Looking up at the night sky he is peering over my shoulder, lining up a shot with my camera, he shares the viewfinder. Opening a book to read, it is his example I follow. He taught me so much through example, I learned without even realizing it.

    I remember one time when I attempted to shave his face for him. Infirm, sitting upright in bed with a basin of warm water on his lap, I sat beside him and maneuvered around his unfamiliar face with my un-experienced hands, trying to remove the grey stubble from his cheeks without cutting him. I barely knew how to shave myself let alone anyone else. I didn’t want to cut him because of the blood thinners he was taking. I was afraid both of slipping and of being so close to him. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. I felt as if I was invading his space. I didn’t feel close enough to him to do this personal grooming.

    It was the ignorance of youth. I didn’t realize how important it was or even, how important he was! It is a shame I’ve carried for so long.

My dad, brother Ralph and myself

    If only I had that chance again, to spread shaving cream onto his face, to carefully guide that double edged razor across his cheeks, if only…I’d jump at the chance!

    Instead, I love and remember him fondly and wish I had been wiser in my youth. I imagine this is something many of us wish for, we all learn from our mistakes. Some of them are so much tougher than others.