To Cuba with love
Parents donate late son’s bike to needy girl.
It is truly a very heartfelt story to see how this all worked out.” Aubrey Foley
It’s the kind of story movies are made of.
The bicycle of a 12-year-old Canadian boy who lost his battle with leukemia has landed in the hands of an 11-year-old Cuban girl, 12 years later.
James Hender Kellie Esq. was born in May, 1990. At just six years old, he was diagnosed with leukemia. In January 2003, James passed away.
His parents, Mike and Carolyn Kellie, describe their late son as lively and “full of mischief.”
They laughed as they recalled him picking up the title Esquire on a trip to England. He made the decision to add Esquire to the end of his name, and it just stuck.
Mike and Carolyn said their son was a big movie fan and an avid reader. The Kellies finish each other’s sentences as they laugh about James knowing all the lines to plays and movies off by heart.
They said he absolutely loved his bicycle. Mike talked about a bikeathon they attended together after a round of James’ cancer treatment.
“James was taking treatment and he wanted to be at the front of this bikeathon,” he said.
When the Kellies read about Aubrey Foley, the Port Colborne man who spends his days fixing bikes to be sent away to people who need them, they knew it was time for James’s bike to be put to use.
“It’s truly, truly an amazing story,” said Foley.
The Kellies said they kept many of James’ things, donating them when they see a need. They said their son would have been truly happy to know his bike was being put to good use by someone who needs it.
They said he was a very caring kid, always looking out for others.
“He was always just so generous with everything,” Carolyn said.
Foley said the story touched his heart, and he was determined to see the bike put into the hands of a child in need.
He fixed up the bike, inscribed James’s full name across the front fork of the bike, and sent it to Cuba with a man named Eddy Campos.
“It is truly a very heartfelt story to see how this all worked out,” said Foley.
Campos, who spends parts of his year in Cuba with his children, delivered the bike to 11-year-old Marcia in Manzanillo, Cuba.
Campos said Marcia’s family is living in poverty, and the girl could not believe she was being given a bike — something her family would never be able to afford.
“It’s an amazing thing,” said Campos. “They so need the bikes.” He and t he Kellies both expressed the importance of Foley’s work, and how humble and selfless he is.
The Kellies sent James’s bike with a pamphlet that was given at his funeral, including a picture of James and a speech he wrote for school on faith.
In the speech, he wrote, “What is faith? The dictionary says faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof.”
He then talks about being raised to have faith in God and how that faith developed through his struggle with cancer.
When Campos returned from Cuba, he brought with him a photo of Marcia, with James’s picture and speech in one hand, and his bike under her other. With the photo came a letter to James’s parents, written by Marcia in Spanish.
Translated by Google, part of that letter read: “Eddy I ask that you please do get this letter to the family of James so they know that I am very grateful that this gift has completely changed my life.”
Marcia ends her letter with words written in a box, translated to: “Do not worry, go ahead, that James is with you and also with me.”