The Bike Ride

Ok, so now finally to an update about Coleman!!!

I’ll start where we left off last year, just after my mother’s passing.  I can’t believe it will be a year this month that she is gone.  It feels so much longer.  I miss her every single day.  Death is difficult for most of us, but we understand it’s place in the great circle of life.  For Coleman, and I assume many kids like him, he simply doesn’t understand the concept of death or its permanency.  I never told him Nana was gone – I had no idea how to possibly explain that to him.  For a while, I was nervous whenever he saw a picture of her, afraid that he would ask where she was and demand for her to come over.   This happened occasionally while she was still sick.  When we would get together with my brothers and sisters, he would look around and ask “Where’s Nana?”  I tried to explain:  “Nana is sick.  She is in the hospital right now.”  “Go get her?” he would ask.  “She can’t come today, Coleman.”  And then again “Go get her?” which escalated into demands, yelling and crying, begging us to go get nana, to please get nana, and where is nana, again and again.   That first time, when he became upset at her absence, it was the first time I considered the possibility that she might not live to ever come home again. 

Although she is gone from us in a physical sense and I miss her dearly, I have never been more sure that she is with us spiritually.  I can practically see her laugh at some of the crazy things we do for Coleman, and watch her shaking her head in amazement.  And when I doubt things, or hit a wall and think this is it, that things for Coleman will just not get better, I can hear her confident voice, feel her gentle push, urging me along, yes, yes, it will get better, you can do this, HE can do this.  I need her now like this more than ever.  And I think she knows it, because she wasted no time at all in helping me, starting on the day of her funeral.    

It was beautiful day, sunny and cool, just as she would have liked.  After the mass, we met friends and family back at a hall to celebrate her life as good Irish folks often do.  Sue kept Coleman at home and brought him to the hall after we had a chance to catch up with some old friends.  Coleman wanted nothing to do with a hall, too many people, too loud and unfamiliar, and he was dragging my hand to get out only minutes after he had arrived.  So we left and arrived to the empty quiet of our house.  It felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable, like none us knew what to do next.   “Want to go for a bike ride Coley?” I asked.  Coleman loves bikes.  His favorite bike is a Taga bike that my mom had bought us a couple of years ago.  A fancy European model that was ridiculously expensive, it’s shaped like a tricycle for adults, with the traditional seat for me, and a big seat on the front for Coleman.  He loves to ride up front, especially to go fast, which is hard for this out-of-shape mama.  J  Today, I wasn’t talking about the Taga.  I was talking about his real bike.   He hadn’t learned to ride it yet, simply could not grasp the concept of continuous motion.  I spent many days, summer after summer, crawling along the ground, pushing his feet around in a circular motion, showing him how it was done.  I tried Velcro straps, strapping his feet to the pedals, but he just couldn’t do it.  He would push for half a stride, and then stop.  I would grab hold of his foot, move it forward and push him again and, half a stride later, stop again.  Time after time, to no avail.   He just didn’t get it.    

But today, on the afternoon of my mother’s funeral, I wanted to get out of the house.  So I dragged out the bike and placed it in front of Coleman.  I then grabbed his helmet, knowing this would be the first obstacle.  I approached him with it, saying in a happy sing-songy way “First we have to wear our helmet to be safe!”  And do you know he put that dang thing right on without a fuss?  Never, ever would he wear it before, not even on the Taga.   Well, I thought.  It must be from skiing last year.  And that was that. 

We moved toward the bike and l lifted him onto it and wheeled him out to the street.  I knelt to the ground and put his feet on the pedals.  As I moved his foot and the pedal, I said  “See push this foot down and….” And nothing because that little bugger took off!  Pedaling like he had been doing it for years.  I shit you not.  I screamed back to the house for the girls and Billy to come see, and we all grabbed cameras and videos and shrieked over his amazing skill.  And then I felt a chill.  Not a cool breeze kind of chill.  This was my mother at work, I suddently sensed.  I was sure of it. First the helmet, and then the bike.  I could just picture her, pushing people out of her way so she could see what was going on down here, grabbing hold of the magic wand or whatever the heck those angels use, and simply shaking it down on Coleman like Tinkerbell shaking pixiedust all over Peter Pan.   “Enough of this. I’m here now” I pictured her saying.   And just like that, Coleman learned to ride a bike. 

We rode every day from then on, even into the very cold days of winter.  He became stronger and better at it.  We have a route to the mailbox on Main Street which is about a mile from our house, and we ride multiple times on the weekends.  He loves it. It is by far my favorite thing he learned to do this year.  And every time we ride, I think of my mom.  Gone in flesh, but so very present in spirit.