“No. Unfortunately, your dad didn’t heed my warnings. This was all your grandpa’s doing.”
I loved hearing about Grandpa, but didn’t remember ever living with him. He was gone before I was a certain age. Details of what happened to him were always kept from me.
I asked, “So, you know where we’re headed?”
“I do.”
My breathing seemed to refuse to settle. These distant answers weren’t calming me.
Noma read me like a book, as they say. “Did I ever tell you about the day your dad got his first bike?”
My spine straightened, a nice memory attached to bikes being so welcomed. “You were there?”
“I was.” One hand on the steering wheel, she smiled back at me, as bright as the rising sun. “Oh boy, he was always a prideful one. That bike was beat-up and had a few rust spots, but that young man, only sixteen, sat on it as if a king.”
Although he wasn’t her biological son, she spoke of Dad as though she adored him. Somehow very connected to him.
Staring out the windshield, her head tilted as if seeing the memory clear as the day it happened. “Good God, his soul was already full of life. Every ride seemed to give him air beneath his wings. He loooved those wheels. He loved the rumble of his pride and joy, of the chrome he’d polish every day…”
As she spoke, I began to understand what I had also seen, his true love for a bike. The freedom it offered. As it had been shown in my nightmare, that bike, or any other, wasn’t chained to him as a weight. It was a pair of wings.
I took a deep breath, suddenly not as afraid to hear another nearby rumble.
Noma’s hand pulled away to search a large duffel bag full of cash in the front passenger seat. I guess she felt in plain sight was the best hidden spot.
After rezipping the bag closed, her hand returned to me with an offering. “I was told you fought to keep hold of this in the helicopter.”
It was Dad’s yellow skullcap.
An explosion of pain mixed with utter gratitude burst from every part of me. I clutched the material to my chest… and sobbed, for a long time.
Tears flowing, I leaned my head back and stared out the front windshield with Noma. The sky glowed due to the sun rising behind us as I pictured my dad, smiling on his bike.
Deep inhale…
Speaking from a profound part of my soul, I told Noma, “I will miss him for the rest of my life.”
Noma was crying too, now. She didn’t swipe away the tears or hide them.
Barely able to swallow, she nodded. “Me, too, baby boy. Me too.”
“I wish I could’ve said goodbye.”
She choked down a sob. “Me, too.”?1
The cry had been therapeutic for the both of us. Although we both seemed tired afterward, I felt calm, as if the storm inside was taking a break before building again.
In a motel, I sat in a tub of water, resting my tired head on my knees, tucked cozily up to my chest. Humming serenely, Noma slowly scrubbed my back with a cloth. Yes, I was old enough to wash myself, but I had only one hand that could get wet. Plus, even though I was in need of getting clean, this endearing moment seemed to be needed, for both our sakes.
Staring at the water, I was seeing stars dance again. I exhaled, surrendering to the possibility it would be all I saw in water since the accident, possibly for the rest of my life. As concerning as that notion could be, Noma’s presence made me feel grounded. That feeling seemed to pay it forward. The more ease I felt, the more she became relaxed.
Deep inhale…
My cheek still leaning to my knees, I stared at my grandmother. “Noma?”
“Yes, baby boy?”
“Why don’t I call you grandma?”
