Three months after my brothers died, we moved from Virginia to Michigan in order to have a fresh start. We left my friends, school, and extended family behind. Suddenly I was in a foreign world and I was lost. Compounding matters we all were devastated by the unexpected loss of my younger brothers and we each handled our grief in different ways.

My parents did not talk about the boys. Instead dad threw himself into his work. Mom busied herself with taking care of me when I was home and crying when I wasn’t. I found that I had a hard time making friends. The three of us kids had been inseparable, therefore we made friends together and we all hung out as a group. Now I had to figure out how to make friends on my own but this was not easy to do since my normally shy nature was now hampered with extreme grief.

We were not really a family anymore. Each of us was trapped in our own world of pain. Evenings were spent watching T.V. but not speaking to one another. Dinners were quiet. I wanted to talk about how I was feeling with them but they could not handle hearing the boys names or seeing their pictures much less talking about them. All the friends that knew them were now hundreds of miles away. There was no one to share what I was going through.

Then one day my dad brought home bikes for mom and I. They were to replace the ones lost in the fire that took the boys lives. I couldn’t believe the bike he got me. It was a 24″ tan beach cruiser. My first grown up bike. That bike changed everything. Mom and I went bike riding on a regular basis. We explored the beauty of Midland, Michigan daily. Although she still could not talk about the boys, mom was more present on those bike rides. Instead of being separate watching T.V. after school, we were sharing conversation as we rode the streets of town. We picked flowers, got ice cream from the ice cream truck, and chatted with neighbors. We laughed at the antics of the birds, enjoyed the sightings of various species of butterflies in the area, and stopped for animals as they crossed in front of us. We spent time loving each other. That is why a bike to me represents togetherness.