Moving forwards

Carol was stuck in a rut, until her son had an idea…

Since the accident, Jamie’s bike had stayed in the shed. ‘I can’t ride it without stabilisers, Mum,’ he moaned. ‘And I don’t want to go to hospital again.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Carol tried to reassure him, but he wasn’t convinced.

His grandparents had bought him the bike and he’d loved it. Decked out in the necessary safety gear, he’d spent hours pedalling around the garden. He’d even accompanied Carol to the shops when she’d cycled to them.

He loved circuiting the common, too, he enjoyed the space and freedom.

When Carol removed the stabilisers, Jamie wobbled and fell off. Landing awkwardly, he broke his arm and spent the night in the children’s ward of the local hospital. Carol blamed herself for removing the stabilisers too early. But other kids his age managed without them, so why not Jamie?

‘Some kids learn quicker than others,’ her dad said. ‘These things can’t be rushed — he’ll do it when he’s ready.’

She understood Jamie not wanting to try again, though, because she didn’t want to try again either. Nothing to do with cycling, just relationships. She’d been hurt and nothing seemed to ease the pain.

It was as though she wasn’t living a life any more, just acting out a part. Each day morphed into the next without an outing or holiday to look forward to. Steve had planned and booked events for them to enjoy and, without him, going places seemed wrong.

She thought they’d be together forever, but they’d only lasted four years.

He’d gone to Australia with a new partner. There’d

‘You’ve got to start looking to the future, for Jamie’s sake as well as your own’

been talk of him visiting Jamie, but it hadn’t happened and now there was a new baby, Carol doubted it ever would.

Her mum urged her to forget him.

‘You’ve got to start looking to the future, for Jamie’s sake as well as your own,’ she’d said.

She was right. Carol and Jamie both needed to move forwards.

But how?

She recalled her dad hanging on to the back of her pink bicycle as she learnt to balance and pedal, remembered the tears, sulks and bruises when she didn’t succeed first time. Jamie’s accident was nothing more than bad luck, but now he saw the bike as an enemy.

And after Steve, how could she ever trust anyone again?

What had her Dad said? ‘These things can’t be rushed…’

Moving in with her parents after Steve left, she found a job in the supermarket. Jamie watched TV after school until she got home.

The arrangement worked well other than she wasn’t sure so much TV was good for him.

One evening, he watched Captain Sir Tom Moore walking up and down his garden, raising money for the NHS. TV often showed the Covid hero even though he’d sadly died.

‘Why did he keep doing that?’ Jamie asked.

‘People were sponsoring him.’

‘What does “sponsoring” mean?’

Carol explained and Jamie looked thoughtful.

‘I want to do something like Captain Sir Tom Moore,’ he said, a few days later. ‘I want to raise money to buy fireworks.’

‘When you’re sponsored to do something, the money raised is for the benefit of others. You can’t spend it on yourself,’ she said softly.

‘I want to buy fireworks to let off on the common. The children’s ward looks on to it — I remember from when I broke my arm.

‘If there were fireworks on the common, the kids could watch them — the doctors and nurses could see them too, if they weren’t busy, and so could the parents and others.’

‘But how would you raise the money?’

‘I’ll get people to sponsor me to ride my bike around the common.’

About to remind him he couldn’t ride without stabilisers, she thought better of it.

‘It’s a great idea. Fireworks are expensive, though — you’d have to do a lot of laps to make enough cash,’ she said, confident he’d forget about it.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he watched more footage of Captain Sir Tom Moore.

One evening, she arrived home to find him cycling round the garden.

‘Look, Mum!’ he yelled ‘No stabilisers! Grandad says I’ll need to practise a lot before I can ask people to sponsor me, though.’

‘Thanks for helping him, Dad,’ Carol said.

‘It was nothing to do with me — he just dragged the bike out of the shed, got on it, and rode off.’

Carol hugged Jamie.

‘I’m so proud of you. Perhaps, when you’ve raised money for the fireworks, we can go cycling together, maybe stay somewhere overnight.’

She remembered a small hotel not far away. They’d have to take the back roads, stop a few times on the journey, but so what?

‘That’d be awesome!’

Jamie replied.

Carol smiled and hugged him again. She needn’t worry — they were doing fine.

One way or another, they were both moving forwards.