Brighten Your Day

One day I was siting on my bike outside of a little store in Bute Falls and this car pulls up with three kids a guy about my age and this old man that had to be in his late 70s. The kids and the driver get out and go into the store, a minute later the old man gets out and comes over and starts up a conversation.

We talk for a bit about nothing and I see the kids and the other guy come out of the store so I pick up my helmet thinking we were done, boy was I wrong. The four of them went past us and into a park next to us to play so I set my helmet down and the old man starts telling me that he retired from some air lines after 40 something years and that he lives in Arizona. I asked what he was doing out here and he says well my wife of fifty years just passed away. I saw that he was getting choked up a bit I put my hand on his shoulder and asked if he was ok.

The entire time we talked I noticed he was kinda looking off into space only glancing at me once in a while. I figured he was looking into his past as he talked. He says that when him and his wife got married they bought an Indian motorcycle and that the airline he worked for would fly them and the bike to different countries and him and his wife would travel around and over the years they road it all over the world together.

By this time I have tears rolling down my face. He then says that the last coherent thing his wife said to him was that she lived a life that would make any woman envious, I got to see the world from the back of a motorcycle with my arms wrapped around the man of my dreams. He glances at me turns and walks to his car and pulls a vase of his wife's ashes out the window and walks back to me. Speechless I didn't have to wait long before he continued, he tells me that his grandson and great grandkids are bringing him home where him and his grandson are going to get the old Indian running so he can take his wife on one last ride. He glances at me for a second, reaches over my bike to shake my hand and says "name is Leon thanks for listening to an old man babel."

I could hardly say my name while shaking his hand, he turns and walks to his family and says "ride carefully Jay."