More from Rich Dixon:

+++

From the beginning, I said Rich’s Ride wasn’t about Rich.

So it’s appropriate, before we loaded the trailer one last time – I didn’t do the very last ride of Rich’s Ride.

I’ve been telling you (here and here) about a great conversation with some folks in New Orleans.

As evening faded, and shadows lengthened, some people drifted away. The handful who remained were intensely curious about the ride’s logistics and equipment. The real fun happened when we went across the street to show off the bike.

One young lady named Phong wanted to try it. Phong might be 4 feet 8 inches tall, so we had some good-natured fun getting her situated on a bike configured for my 6-foot-1-inch frame. But she slipped easily from her small wheelchair onto the bike seat, and we figured out some accommodations. Soon she was zipping around the parking lot, dodging cars, with a huge smile on her face.

“I gotta get one of these!”

While I called out instructions and encouragement, we all laughed and shared in her unbridled joy. Several others worried a careless driver might interrupt her fun, but I just blinked away tears.

Phong’s grin displayed the same sense of wind-in-the-face freedom I experienced on my initial two-block cruise more than ten years earlier. The handcycle broke an invisible barrier for both of us. Maybe you can’t comprehend the value of that sort of liberty unless you’ve lost it. Weaving past a few inattentive drivers is a small risk when the reward is freedom…and hope.

On the last day of the ride, I wondered how to measure success. I still don’t have a good answer, but I’m fairly certain Jesus measures things one person at a time.

Maybe, in the face of an able-bodied world, Phong’s grin, and the hope it represents, indicate the kind of success that matters.

+++

Next week, Rich will follow up on his writing about labels from last week.