Bikes, Death and the Love of a Father Getting to the age where most men have their mid-life crisis, my dad broke down and bought himself a Harley. Nothing felt better to him than having the wind blow across his bald head. Enjoying everything that life on a Harley gave him, he decided that he would ride it to work one day. Never to believe that on that sunny October day he would ride his last ride on that bike. This near death experience literally had me on my knees wondering why me? Why my dad? Because losing my dad is like losing my best friend. That sunny October day, leaving the job site for lunch Dad needed to make a quick stop by the office. While driving down Highway 114 and watching the two cars that followed behind the vehicle he already let merge onto the highway, he sees a car speeding down the on ramp and onto the highway, never did my dad imagine that this car would side swipe him, sending him tumbling down the highway. Lucky for my dad the man that drove behind him the last four miles saw everything, and tried to keep my dad from getting hit a second time. He parked his truck sideways in the middle of the highway, risking his own life to hopefully save my dads. When my dad finally came to a stop after tumbling a total of fifyy feet, he then realized that he still lyed on the highway. Trying to crawl to the shoulder the man who bravely risked his life came up behind my father held his helmet, making my dad lay down, it was then that my dad realized the seriousness of his physical condition. The EMS team arrived in what seemed, to my dad, hours, but in reality was only a matter of about twenty minutes. Loading my dad onto the stretcher and placing him in the ambulance, they transported him to Parkland Hospital in Dallas. While at Parkland, he under-went two major surgeries, that eventually took away his pride, his passion, his love of sports, and most of all his love of riding motorcycles and ATVs. His first surgery consisted of a fachiatamy which allowed the fluid that had built up in his lower right leg to drain. Two days later, they performed reconstructive elbow surgery to replace the two inches of his humerus that shattered during the initial hit. In this surgery they placed two steel plates, fourteen screws and aproximitely two feet of wire in his right elbow, during this surgery they also stitched up the slit on the inside of his right leg that they made during his fachiatamy. After being in ICU for two days, the nurses moved him to a regular room where I could then see him. The first time I went to go see him in the hospital I