So I am running down the sidewalk, holding my son’s shoulder with one hand and the seat to the bicycle in the other, and I’m giving the best version of the, “You can do it,” speech I can, which is a lot for me. I then find myself running out of breath and pushing off, hollering my best speech as my boy pedals down the sidewalk, only to hit the grass, fall down and have the bicycle roll over him. Then, I chase him down to make sure he is okay, and it’s a process. First, is he physically okay? Then, is he mentally okay? Is the bike okay? And then, we get up and do it all again.
In case you have not figured it out, I taught my son how to ride a bike without training wheels. What makes this even more interesting is that I have twins, so I had to do it twice, and I had to keep running and keep the pep talks going till they both got it. Once they got the basics and I thought I was good and I was proud of them, my wife was watching them ride up and down the sidewalk. She would see them fall off in the grass and get back up and start going again. They would be going fast, and again, jump into the grass. She then looked at me and asked, “Did you teach them how to stop?” I said, “Come to think about it, no we have not gotten there yet. They will be okay. A few bruises never hurt anyone.”
As I thought about it, two things came out of this. In the times we are living, we have to just keep going, and even if we don’t know where we are going or how we are going to stop, we have to be willing to just keep going, even if it is day by day. Second, once we got the training wheels off the bikes, I was amazed at how much faster they were on their bikes. It made me think that something that is keeping us safe is also holding us back, and we need to just take a leap of faith and go for it, and then we will fly. So, get out there and ride a bike, hunt some bears and smell the roses, and remember, even if you don’t know where you are going or if you’re afraid you might get hurt, the trip will be worth it.
