PART 2: The Promise Between a Little Boy and a Biker
Jake stood quietly beside Lucas’s hospital bed, the folded drawing still trembling in his calloused hands.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Finally, he looked at me.
“I never thought I’d see him again like this.”
I swallowed hard.
“Tell me everything.”
Jake nodded.
Six months earlier, Jake had ridden to St. Matthew Children’s Hospital with the Patriot Riders, a group of veterans who visited seriously ill children every month.
They brought stuffed animals.
Toy motorcycles.
Coloring books.
Sometimes they simply listened.
Jake always parked his bright red Harley where children could see it from the pediatric windows.
One afternoon, a nurse wheeled a tiny boy toward the glass.
“That one’s Lucas,” she whispered.
“He thinks your motorcycle looks like something superheroes ride.”
Jake laughed.
Lucas immediately rolled closer.
“Does it go really fast?”
“It can.”
“Does it feel like flying?”
Jake smiled.
“Only if you respect it.”
Lucas grinned.
“I want one.”
His mother had been filling out paperwork down the hall.
She never knew the conversation happened.
From then on, whenever Jake visited the hospital, Lucas somehow found him.
Sometimes they talked about motorcycles.
Sometimes about dinosaurs.
Sometimes about places they both wanted to see.
Jake brought photographs of mountains.
Lucas colored flames onto every motorcycle in the pictures.
One rainy afternoon, Lucas handed Jake a folded drawing.
On it was a little boy wearing a tiny leather vest.
Beside him stood a huge biker.
Above them were the words:
BEST RIDING FRIENDS.
Jake still carried that drawing inside his vest.
Every ride.
Every day.
One afternoon Lucas became unusually quiet.
Jake asked him what was wrong.
The little boy stared out the window.
“My doctor says my heart is getting tired.”
Jake didn’t know how to answer.
Instead he sat beside him.
After several minutes Lucas whispered,
“If I can’t grow up…”
“…promise you’ll still ride for me.”
Jake felt tears sting his eyes.
“I promise.”
Lucas smiled.
“And if Mommy cries…”
“…tell her I wasn’t scared.”
Jake reached across the bed.
They shook hands.
A promise between a seven-year-old boy…
…and a biker twice his size.
Three weeks later the hospital stopped calling.
Jake assumed Lucas had gone home.
He never imagined hospice had taken over his care.
Until the nurse found the drawing tucked inside Lucas’s bedside cabinet.
On the back was one sentence.
If I’m almost out of time… please find Jake.
The nurse did exactly that.
Which was why the enormous biker had appeared at my front door asking only one question.
“May I say goodbye too?”