The Biker I Tried To Kill Years Ago Just Showed Up To Hold My Hand As I Die

The biker I tried to kill years ago just showed up to hold my hand as I die. I’m lying in this hospital bed with tubes in my nose and machines beeping around me, and this massive man with tattoos and a leather vest is holding my hand like I’m his father.

I’m not his father. I’m the man who almost ended his life when he was nineteen years old.

My name is Robert Mitchell. I’m eighty-one years old. Lung cancer. The doctors say I have maybe a week left. Maybe less. My family stopped visiting three days ago. Said their goodbyes. Told me they loved me. Left me here to die alone.

But Marcus came. The boy I nearly destroyed showed up when my own blood abandoned me.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered when I saw him in the doorway. My voice doesn’t work right anymore. Everything is fading.

He pulled up a chair. Sat down. Took my hand in his massive calloused grip. “There’s nowhere else I should be, old man.”

“I don’t deserve this. Not from you. Not after what I did.”

Marcus smiled. That same smile I remember from forty-three years ago when he was just a skinny kid with a beat-up motorcycle and dreams bigger than his circumstances.

“You know what you did to me, Robert?” His voice was thick. “You want me to tell you?”

I closed my eyes. I knew. God, I knew. I’d carried the shame of it for four decades.

“You changed my life,” he said.Continue reading…