This is a beautiful essay on family and aging, told through a bike passed down through generations. Ian Treloar explores the history of his family with respect and self-awareness. A reminder to honor your family treasures, and where they came from.
I guess I always had some distant awareness of the fact that the red bike was a part of family history stretching further back than my period of guardianship, but I was too caught up in the everyday to really engage with that story. There was Life Stuff to deal with: big things like relationships, work, family, as well as all the little things we get hung up on, thinking they’re big things. Covid-19 was a kind of a reset, though. More time at home with the kids. A more poignant relationship with my older relatives, particularly my Grandma over in South Australia, who I used to see a couple of times a year but who I now hadn’t seen for two years. And the whole time, growing increasingly dusty and rusty, the red bike and the secrets it held lay waiting under my parents’ floorboards.
