It is the rare encounter with another’s misfortune that raises the awareness of our own mortality. Ranger had such an encounter exactly twenty years after I had mine.
I was riding down from Champlain Lookout in the Gatineau Hills north of Ottawa when I rounded a bend and came upon the scene of a horrific motorcycle accident. The driver, the passenger, the motorcycle, and a right leg were strewn over a distance of 100 metres.
The sky was blue, the wind was warm and I was an unstopable 25-year-old, running out of gears as I rounded that bend and collided with another’s fate.
I was jolted out of my cockiness that day, realizing how close we are to being but a memory. May they rest in peace.