lindsayliveshere.org

After he retired from General Motors, after 30 years of late nights pulling second shift, my dad started riding a bicycle. A cruiser bike, the kind where you sit straight up — pastel green paint, cushy leather seat, panniers on the back. At first he rode it just on the bike path tucked in the woods behind our subdivision. Then to the ice cream shop or the Aldi, off the main road. On Friday my sister Lisa called, with the worst kind of phone call, that dad had been hit by a car while riding his bike. She didn’t know details. She didn’t think it was serious.

A flurry of phone calls followed, Christina to me, me to mom, me to Christina, Lisa back to me. No one knew the details. I was sitting at my desk at work trying to make polite conversation while also trying not to start panicky crying. Finally Lisa and mom got to the hospital and learned that he’d been hit by an SUV. He’d been riding to an auto dealership on Transit to pick up his car from the shop. Some woman just plowed right into him, broadside, and he flew off the bike, 10 feet. The end result: scratched, bruised, no broken bones. Muscatos are tough. But, dear universe: Seriously?