Making Lemonade Out of a Stolen Bicycle

When one member of the family hurts everyone feels it. In my family everyone also has an opinion about it, and we all see it differently through our own personal lens. I love that we all have different perspectives, like individual spokes of the familial wheel that help make the whole thing move.

The bike analogy is a loose one, but I’ve got bikes on the brain. My sweet girl had a yellow diamondback that was stolen two nights ago. That very day, I watched her zip around the campground on her bike, so grateful that she had it.

It was beautiful to see her long curly hair waving in the wind as she zoomed past our motorhome. I remembered feeling the same feeling when I rode my bike as a kid. I love that she had a bike and a safe place to experience that. 

We were devastated to realize the bike was gone.

I questioned each member of the family to see if maybe they rode it somewhere and forgot to bring it home. No one had.

Bryce searched the woods to see if someone borrowed it and stashed it in the woods. All the men cruised through the trailer park next door to see if it was over there. Hal’s and I walked the dogs looking all over the campground peering in every site. It was nowhere to be found. 

I’m so sad for my girl. We bought it for her 12^th birthday, so she had it about 1 year and 2 weeks. It was a super nice/expensive bike, and when she wasn’t riding it, I could use it because we are about the same size. So, I lost a bike, too. 

Feeling the shock and the mistrust of others

the past couple days, I’ve processed through the feelings and I’m using this post to finish my processing. 

The fact that we have been here for five months without theft doesn’t mean that we are safe from it. I do find it weird that they stole her bike over the three other bikes that were out there. Hers was very small, and you would have to be about 5’ to ride it. Just weird.

We should have locked the bikes up, but if someone really wanted it, they could clip the locks and steal them, regardless of our safe-proofing. Most likely, it was someone camping in the campground and grabbed it on their way out. 

Ultimately, Someone Needed That Bike More than We Did

And I really, honestly hope that they love it as much as we did. Who knows. Maybe they saved my daughter’s life because she would have been hit by a car while enjoying that wind-through-her-hair feeling of riding her bike. 

I love how supportive each member of our family is! Respecting the experience that each person is having, each sharing their insight, each offering their own brand of help. Not one of the boys made fun of her, or blamed her, and they are known to be a little jerky from time to time.

I decided to order Halea a pair of rollerblades to teach her a new mode of transportation. There is lemonade to be made out of these lemons!