Bicycles (Bisikleta)

What's with bicycles?

Who among you who have wished for a bicycle when you were still a kid?

I did.

Someone already dead made me remember the first bicycle I had. Her name's Mariannet Amper, the kid from Davao who took her life. Yes, you've already heard the story.

Minutes ago, i read an old news article about her. And I read, that like many of us, she did wish for a bicycle. As a kid, my reason for wishing one was because it's "uso". It's a status quo when you have a bicycle at home. It's like having your own car in a little less like a child's comprehensions.

My father bought one with two little wheels at the rear. But it wasn't for me; it was for my older brother. Sabi ni Pa, mag share na lang daw kami. At first I was disheartened by that decision because I was the one wishing for it for the whole time and not knowing, that my brother wished it for himself as well. And back then, we can't afford to have two bicycles.

For the parents, bicycle stands for responsibilities. For riding one, makes one responsible of himself/herself and to his/her bicycle. It's also one of the few moments were a parent readying themselves from the process of "letting go" their child/children.

For us, kids, perhaps bicycle symbolizes freedom. Freedom to go away from home just a couple of blocks, exploring new places, new people, new rules that differs from what we used to. Freedom to learn. Or creating new ways to let out the "other" kid in us. Or freedom to have a respite when experiencing something a kid doesn't understand yet or wanting to have a little break from, maybe, domestic violence.

I wished that little Ms. Mariannet Amper had that bicycle. She could have used it in so many ways. Perhaps she could have used it days before she thought of suicide, riding far far away while the wind swept and dried her tears.

If she could have given just one day to experience being a child again, free from anything, perhaps there could have been a tiny hope. Just one day.

How many of her still out there wishing the same thing this season?