The Blue Bicycle and the Boy #FridayReflections

Photo Credit:  Sanch Writes

The boy looked out from the motel window.  His family was at the beach, enjoying a rare vacation.

In the distance was a girl's blue bicycle. A beautiful aqua blue, it had a basket, perfect, perhaps to carry a picnic lunch.  It had been left there near the water.  Perhaps the girl who owned it was swimming with the rest of his family.  Or eating.  Or doing something else fun.

His family was on vacation, true, but while his sisters had gone with their mother to the beach, the boy had to stay behind with his Dad.  His Dad tried to distract him, but it didn't work.

"Why do I have to stay behind, Dad?" he thought.  "Why will I never even be able to ride a bicycle? Or swim?"

With an effort, he got out of bed to get a closer look.  The effort in itself winded him.  He paused to catch his breath, while his father looked at him, making sure he didn't need help. 

He knew better than to ask the question.

It was his heart.  He would be confined, for the rest of his life, to bed.  But every moment, with every beat of his damaged heart, he would ask.....why can't I be like everyone else?

* * * *

Writing for #FridayReflections.  Today's prompt - the above picture.

This is not total fiction, but rather, is based on the story of one of Bil's next door neighbors growing up.   The neighbor child, "A", born with a congenital heart defect, died when he was in his early teens.  He died before I met Bil's older brother, my husband.

Bil is in his late 50's and developmentally disabled.  He also has an almost "photographic" memory. 

Perhaps he sometimes thinks of "A", the boy who had to stay in bed for part of his life, and died so many years ago.  

And maybe he thinks "we all deserve the best lives we can have, despite what others call our disabilities".