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A Long and Winding Road
An hour and a half away from my home in metro Atlanta, via roads with speed limits I haven’t driven in years, I stood in the rain on the side of a winding road in Winder, Georgia as the newest ghost bike in the USA was dedicated in honor of a 17-year-old girl who died recently on my 57th birthday. She was hit from behind by a motor vehicle driver while riding her bike home from the supermarket where she worked.
I was the sole person there bearing witness besides David, who runs the nonprofit organization Bike Friendly ATL, which dedicates these ghost bike memorials throughout the Southeast (this is his 85th); Rick, a man with Trump signs on his lawn who gave permission for the ghost bike memorial for a Black girl named Obienuju Faith Osuegbu to be there on his property, too, in front of which you can still see the police markings from that night; and Toya, the sister of the victim, who a quick online search shows was a volleyball star at East Carolina University. I was grateful I went, to be able to take the photo of these three people who were strangers to each other not long before. I was grateful to be alive to tell this story, as I had miraculously survived a hit-and-run while riding my bike in the place I call home just eight weeks prior.
