Second chances do come your way. Like trains, they arrive and depart regularly. Recognizing the ones that matter is the trick.
~Jill A. Davis

As we waited for our school’s staff meeting to begin, I realized the English teacher was eavesdropping as I visited with the other automotive teachers. Then she interrupted us. “That’s cool. I think you should do it.”

The guys laughed. I was embarrassed, but tried to be polite. “Thanks. But it’s impossible.”

She smiled. “I’ll pray about it.”

The woman had no idea what she was talking about, but she was going to pray?

When I got home from work, I went down in the basement. My old 1956 Triumph sat in a corner covered with dust. I shook my head.

The next day, the English teacher stopped me in the hall. “I tell my students to go after their dreams. Maybe you should, too.”

I grimaced.

The next night, I rolled my bike into my workshop, sat down, and stared. Restoring antique motorcycles was my passion, but I’d never restored one that was so old, rusty, and abused. But that wasn’t the real problem. Since my wife Suzy had died, I just didn’t care anymore. I preferred my recliner.

That night, I found myself staring at the old bike and talking to Suzy in heaven. “Remember how badly I wanted this thing? I didn’t fully appreciate what you sacrificed to give me my dream.”

A few days later, I ran into the English teacher again.

“How’s the motorcycle coming?”

I shook my head and walked away.

That night, I started cleaning the old bike while muttering under my breath. “English teachers understand books, not motorcycles!”

As I began taking apart the old bike, I thought about Suzy. That old Triumph was all we could afford. It needed tons of work. I spent extra hours at my job and used our spare money to buy new engine components to modify the chassis for racing. Suzy helped us economize by using our temperamental old washing machine and hanging up the wet clothes in our damp, smelly basement. Then, one night the motorcycle shop where I worked had a break-in, and my bike was gone. Suzy and I held each other and cried.

Years later, my friend Jim had called. “I bought an old Triumph, and it’s been sitting in my garage for years. I’m never going to find time to rebuild it. Want to take a look?”

“Mmmm. Okay. But Suzy just commented that I’ll have to live to be over a hundred to finish the projects I already have!”

Nevertheless, I went over to Jim’s to look at the bike. Goose bumps popped out on my arms, and a chill ran up my spine. The bike was rusted and had missing parts, but I knew even before I checked the serial number that it was my old race bike. Someone had treated it badly, but I recognized my custom work. I gave Jim his money.

Then came Suzy’s cancer diagnosis; I wheeled the bike into a corner and ignored it.

Now I was torn. I stubbornly stayed in my rut. Teaching automotive classes was my fourth career, and I liked it, but the rest of my life was spent in my recliner or with my grown children. When I saw the English teacher, I walked the other way. It would bring back too many memories. I was afraid to pour my heart into repairing that old bike.

Some evenings, I’d sit and stare at the old Triumph. This was the bike that made me a winner — that created my reputation as a mechanic and a racer. But the crazy teacher was wrong. Following one’s dreams isn’t always a good idea. I didn’t need any more hurt.

One night, to my surprise, I found myself talking to God. “This is impossible. This bike needs too many rare parts.” I went upstairs and studied eBay and Craigslist. Hours of searching didn’t turn up anything.

But I kept searching, and a few weeks later I found an engine seal kit in England. At least the English teacher hadn’t been sticking her nose in my business lately. I would have been embarrassed to admit that her big mouth pushed me into action.

A month later, after many computer searches, I found piston rings in California. The project was moving forward — at a snail’s pace, but moving.

During Christmas break a year later, the teaching staff asked me to join them for lunch. I didn’t realize the lunch was for a widow — an award-winning teacher — whose job was eliminated when her husband was dying of cancer. I found myself talking to her throughout the lunch and for an hour afterward. We had a lot in common. A few months later, the widow put a book on grief in my mailbox. When I read it, I started listening to the music Suzy and I shared — CDs I hadn’t touched since her death. I wrote the widow a note thanking her for the book and closed it with the words: “You and I are kindred spirits.” As soon as I mailed the note, I wished I could take it back. It was way too forward.

The beginning of May, the widow wrote me a letter telling me about the pain of having an auction to sell her husband’s antique tractors — tractors he’d spent years restoring. “I just had a feeling you’d understand.”

I did understand. My hands shook as I dialed her number and invited her to dinner. It had been fifty years since I went on a first date, and I was so nervous I only managed to eat a little of the breading off my fish.

My life was changing in ways I never could have imagined. First, I found myself talking to God, and then I made the commitment to rebuild my old bike. Next, I found myself falling in love, and now I was attending church every Sunday. What was going on?

Over the next year, the old Triumph came together slowly. Then, the finishing touch. Early in September, I found the tires I needed at a motorcycle swap meet in Iowa. The end of that month, I married the widow in a large church wedding with two of our children and fourteen of our grandchildren as attendants.

I’ll never stop missing my precious Suzy, but I was blessed with a second chance at happiness.

And who is the widow? I’m sure you’ve guessed. I married the English teacher who prayed I’d rebuild my old bike.

And my 1956 Triumph? It’s won trophies and blue ribbons at antique motorcycle shows all over the United States.

~Fred Prudhomme