The Bicycle

When you are looking for light and all you are finding are shadows and darkness, where do you find illumination?  Sit quietly for a while and think back to a moment in time, keep thinking, it is there, that time when a smile was brought to your face…a moment that was so amazing that you couldn’t have escaped the joy even if you had put your shoes on and tried to run from it…

I should have been thankful that I had a bicycle but I was embarrassed of it.  Most of my other friends had ten-speeds and I was still riding a “banana bike”.  At Christmas time, Santa had brought my adoptive older brother the most amazing Schwinn Continental ten-speed bike that I could have ever imagined, and I was so incredibly jealous.

I never got along with my adoptive brother (who is my biological second cousin), from the moment I entered his world it was a disaster. Most people talk about the joys of adoption, no one likes to talk about when a child enters the family and creates a tidal wave of disruption…but on this one particular day…

My brother left the house on a Saturday morning to head out to bowl on his bowling league, he had tournaments that day.  When he returned he was riding a brand new red and black ten-speed, it was beautiful!  My eyes grew wide and I asked where he had gotten the bike, “I won it at my bowling tournament.” he replied.  “What are you going to do with it?”, I wondered hoping that I might get to ride it.  “Oh, I don’t know, looks like I will have two bikes!”  “Why would you need two bikes when I don’t have a nice bike?”  “Who knows, one might break down and I will have another.” My brother loved to tease and get the best of me… the tears began to roll down my cheeks.  My brother then turned to me and said, “What are you crying for?  I joined this tournament to win this bike for you, I knew your bike was lousy and I wanted you to have this.”  My brother had so rarely showed me kindness and I stood there in solid disbelief.  I don’t know if at that moment I was more thrilled that I had a brand new bike or that my adoptive brother had shown me such an incredible act of kindness but combined, the two acts humbled me greatly.

Today my adoptive brother is a missing person.  This June will mark 7 years since he disappeared in the middle of the afternoon on a bicycle…

Let’s Bring Them Home

While the journey to find him has brought no clues, when I need to remember a happy moment in time, I remember that random act of kindness from my brother and suddenly the darkness is replaced with the light of hope.