Katie

Katie

Jeff Hughes

At the last minute I decide not to go to the funeral. I don’t really know the family, after all, or even her other friends, and so there is no one there to try and console, no one to whom I might feel obligated to try and explain the unexplainable. Instead, I go for a ride. That seems like the right thing to do. She would have understood that.

So it is that the early morning’s slanting sun finds me chasing my shadow westward, into the mountains, seeking respite in the wind and the road and the glories to be found in a fast motorcycle. Lord, how many times have I done that?

The Suzuki feels vibrant and alive, a mixture of things that normally make me laugh inside my helmet. Today is imbued with a quiet seriousness, though, and my thoughts are locked into wonder at the mystery of why things are; why they happen the way they do. As I bend the Gixxer into the turns, the sensory input from the road feeding its ever-soothing effect, like a mainline hit straight into my psyche, the bike soon disappears beneath me. I’m cruising today. Instead of the taut focus I normally bring to my rides, constantly evaluating the lines and angles of the road, the shadows from which it’s sometimes hard to tell what the upcoming traction is likely to be, and the feel from the tires and suspension whispering their story – all the endless variables that riding a sportbike brings to bear - I move into autopilot. Riding on instinct, with all the technical minutiae moved away into some murky region of my brain, a place of which my conscience is only dimly aware, I’m left alone with my thoughts.

Into the mountains, traversing all those roads which she and I both loved, the only place where our separate worlds intersected, I’m reminded of how she looked the last time I saw her. Like me, riding made her happy, in a much deeper way than the mere passing of a pleasantry might. It showed in her eyes, in her laughter, in the exuberance she brought to Sunday mornings.

Realizing where I am, I roll out of the throttle, engine braking slowing me down, and then pull off onto the gravel pullout. Switching off the ignition, I dismount, pulling off my helmet and slowly shrugging out of my jacket.

This is where I took the picture, carefree ponytail streaming out behind her, smile hidden beneath her helmet, but her happiness nevertheless lit just as brightly by the joyful arc she scribed through the corner. A single moment in time; a single moment of grace.

Today, as on that day, I have my Nikon SLR in my tail pack. But for once I feel no compulsion to take it out. There’s nothing here now but a memory.

It’s a tragedy when anyone gets killed. But it’s especially disheartening when it’s a young woman with nearly her whole life in front of her. Because then the tragedy is amplified by the painful wonder of what might have been.

Katie Ashton was killed commuting to work on her motorcycle. The details don’t matter. Suffice it to say that it happened in D.C.’s dense suburban traffic, one more lousy statistic in a concrete jungle already littered with a long list of such sad stories.

What does matter is what she was like as a person, and as a rider.

She brought her own special brand of adventure with her, an enthusiastic partner in exploring this life we lead. She was compassionate and kind. And she touched many people with her spirit and her generosity.

She was also a single mother, leaving behind a young daughter. For that she has been criticized. Some cannot understand how a person with her responsibilities could so willingly embrace the risks of a sport like motorcycling.

I think something different. I think Katie left her daughter the greatest gift she possibly could: a lesson in what living life really means. The wisdom that being alive is much more than just the accumulation of years.

She was no poseur. Sportriding cast the same spell on her that it has on many of us. And she responded to that enchantment by approaching it with the same dedication as those rest of us similarly afflicted. For her the sport quickly became much more than something in which to pass a few happy hours. It became part of who she was.

She was one of us.

So much so that in the hours immediately after the news of her accident began to circulate, there also began a series of self-appraisals by a lot of local riders. Riders who were suddenly voicing questions about whether they ought to continue riding, whether the risks were worth it.

No one could know what Katie would have counseled, of course. But I think I know. I think, after all the crying and remembrances, after the cards and the flowers were finished, after all the trying-to-help-all-those-she-could who had been touched by the tragedy was done, she would have said “let’s go for a ride.”

Because she got it.

She knew that riding carries risk, of course. Just like life itself. But she also knew that riding carries an enormous capacity to heal, a power to make things right when nothing else seemingly can.

Mounting back up, I point the Suzuki down the mountain. Accelerating up to speed, then holding a constant pace through the sweepers on the descent, I’m left with the pull and tug of the esses, swept up in that rising note of excitement as something mysterious changes, as the bike cleaves to the road, becomes a part of it. The old magic. She would have ridden here before. Would have felt that.

A few miles out, having bottomed out back down in the valley, I turn down a little-used route, one that climbs up along the ridgeline of the next mountain in the chain. It’s one of my favorite places, a sun-dappled route running for much of its length along an ancient trout stream. A road which is at turns both beguiling and technical. A dozen twisting miles up is a pond and church and a tiny, old cemetery. There are only twenty or thirty graves there, but some of them date from the early 18^th century. Enough time to give one some perspective.

It’s been awhile. I determine to stop there.

Those esses on the run down the first mountain have left in me a tinge of something. No longer content just to cruise, my throttle hand wields just a little bit longer throw, a slightly sharper edge. The Suzuki harkens to my touch, heartened as it always is by the promise of a spirited run.

In my mind’s eye I look back one last time, remembering that ponytail dancing behind her like the tail of an ebullient kite, the girlish smile, and the courage to step outside the stereotypes of her gender. Then I wind up the Gixxer and, for a few miles, for her, ride like the wind.

Godspeed.