How has a year gone by since this beautiful, heaven-sent day late August 2023. Dad had encouraged me for a few weeks to bring my cruiser bike over to reunite for a ride together around the neighbourhood- a beautiful trip back in time, in the spirit of past bike rides and adventures.
He taught me how to ride. I was a nervous, off-balanced latebloomer when it came to riding without training wheels, but he was determined to enable me to feel that freedom of the bike. That joy it had always given him throughout his life. Delaying had come to that critical point, it was time to push the bird out of the nest. He took me to my Elementary School parking lot and around and around I circled, with him running behind, catching me if I tilted, and letting go quietly when he sensed I was ready to fly solo.
We had so many beautiful rides together. Safely down sidewalks to new worlds my young eyes had never seen. We even parked outside the University and rode in to enjoy fall and its offerings, and he introduced me to the beauty and magic of campus and Hub mall with its coloured shutters opening to the mall strip below lined with services and glorious windows above.. and lines of vending machines (to a young child this was quite marvellous!)… I fell in love with University and longed to return (and did, as undergrad and alumni).
On this day our trip was shorter, but just as impactful. Down familiar roads I grew up, making the journey from house to our old condo in Lakewood Estates blocks down, where my first memories of childhood begin. We rode around the old development, stood in front of our old home, reminisced. I must admit I peeked through the back fence boards to see the back yard, too. I remember so much, the fence he painted, the shed he built, the balls he’d teacher me to catch and throw. So many memories.
(Dad and Heather by the condo as it was being built, below, 1977)
I’m so grateful for that bike ride with you that day. Thank you for having the foresight as you always did, the energy to propel that experience forward for us to share ans savour together. How I wish I had more rides with you left, more days where I followed your bike, letting you forge the path and enjoying the ride.
I’ve not taken my bike out for a spin this year. The catastrophic crises of the last ten months and a late spring start and then suddenly July kept me from even filling my tires with the bike pump Dad lovingly bought for me. I’m just not brave enough to ride solo again, or to forge a path without him in the lead.