My son told everyone his biker father was dead as he was ashamed of me and now I’m only one present when he’s dying. I’m standing in this hospital room kissing my boy’s forehead while the machines keep him alive, and the last words he ever spoke to me were “I wish you really were dead.”
That was three weeks ago. Before the accident. Before the call from a number I didn’t recognize telling me my son was in the ICU. Before I rode 847 miles through the night to get to a hospital where the staff didn’t want to let me in because I wasn’t listed as family.
My name is Robert Mitchell. I’m sixty-one years old. I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was seventeen. I’m covered in tattoos. My beard reaches my chest.
I wear a leather vest with patches I’ve earned over forty years. I look like exactly the kind of man parents warn their children about.
And I’m standing here watching my thirty-four-year-old son die because a drunk driver ran a red light.
The doctors say there’s no brain activity. They say he’s gone. They sayContinue reading…
