Columnist Karen Gardner: Remembering my son Ben

Each year I take two memorial bike rides, one of which is coming up on Oct. 2.

I’d invite you to join me, but these aren’t public events. They are very private affairs, nearly solo, just me and the memory of my son, Ben. Not that I don’t take him with me on many a ride during the year, it’s just that this one and another earlier in the year, are special, dedicated to his memory.

We as a culture are not very skilled at dealing with loss and grief. We want our friends and relatives to grieve their lost ones and then move on. And because we don’t seem to know what to say in the face of grief, we choose not to say much beyond the usual platitudes of sympathy and then nothing at all when our friend’s grief has passed the expected expiration date. But when the lost one is a child, well, it’s even harder to know what to say because it’s just so wrong and unimaginable. We can’t relate, don’t want to relate and who can blame us?

I’ve found that people with kids have the hardest time with this. I’ve seen that look, that expression of acute pain and shock when I reveal this part of my history. It’s as if, for a brief moment, they are forced to consider the loss of one of their own. And then the look is gone, but so is their ability to hear me, and so is my ability to share. I tend not to bring it up again and usually, neither do they.

Protecting others from my loss isn’t good for them, I now realize, and certainly not good for me. Speaking of those we’ve lost keeps our memories of them fresh and vivid, keeps them close to us. I still grieve Ben’s loss, of course, but talking about it makes it easier to bear. So here I go, as another anniversary approaches, doing something completely at odds with my past behavior, talking publicly about him and about how much I admire him and miss him every day.

Ben died on his bike nearly two decades ago in Austin, Texas, and, in a truly perverse way, I recognize what a fitting way it was for him to leave this world. He was 25 and didn’t own a car, never drove one, never got his license. He lived lightly on this earth. But his bike wasn’t just a means of transportation for him. No, not at all. It was a way of life, social as well as cultural.

As a volunteer with the Yellow Bike Project, he supported its goal of promoting bicycle use by operating community bike shops, teaching bike mechanics and maintenance, and advocating for safe biking on city streets. He and his friends rode regularly with groups such as Critical Mass, where no one is in charge and the route is an organic, unled experience through downtown city streets.

And, of course there were the organized late-night group rides that encouraged biking sans clothes, which, I’ve just discovered, are still happening. Participating in something like this was so like Benny; he was a very funny guy and I can imagine the glee he must have felt while cruising through Austin naked on a hot summer night.

Though Ben claimed to be apolitical, he lived his life as political statement. His choice to not participate in our gasoline-powered culture wasn’t about climate change, not back then; it had more to do with living simply, like buying his clothes used and joining the food co-op.

As an artist, photographer and cartoonist, Ben created beautiful posters and interesting photographs. While I love his posters such as the stunning one he did for the Yellow Bike Project, his photography leaned toward the abstract. While I take photos of wildlife, birds in particular, his subjects were more likely a rusted tractor in a dry, brown field, or a decaying building in a cityscape.

Though he was a computer guy and worked in a print shop, he struggled with spending so much time in front of the screen. I can only wonder what he’d think now with the explosion of electronic devices. I bet he’d be deeply involved, taking full advantage of them, but also resisting like crazy their powerful pull.

Ben did more in his short life than many of us ever will, and the way he lived is something to envy and admire. He spent the last two weeks of his life living in the famous Green Tortoise bus with new friends from around the world, touring through Costa Rica and discovering its beautiful and varied ecosystems. His plan was to return there, but not before he’d mastered salsa dancing and Spanish.

There is so much he and I would be talking about, so much I would love to ask him. Like what does he think of our current president, or what should I use to keep my bike chain from rusting?

We would be sharing our photos and artwork, talking about movies and graphic design, websites and politics, and we would be riding our bikes together on my favorite bike path. He would have a spouse and maybe kids and we would be hashing over all the day-to-day issues that brings.

I miss him. Every day.

Even in the face of our losses, life does go on. Hard as that may be though, it does get easier over time, though never actually easy.

The challenge is to keep them with us, keep the memories alive in whatever way we can. For me that’s remembering Ben in a more public way, sharing his life with others. And taking memorial bike rides.

Karen Gardner, of Haydenville, a retired computer programmer, is a bird watcher, nature photographer and ukulele player. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.