For three months, I saw a tattooed man in a leather vest come to my house every morning at 6 AM to run with my thirteen-year-old autistic son, Connor. I observed from my kitchen window. My son doesn’t talk, he follows strict schedules, and for the past four years, he has run the same 2.4 miles on the same route at the same time. When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, my body progressively let me down.
I couldn’t run anymore, and Connor’s world started to fall apart. If he did not run, he would scream, strike himself, and cry for hours as I sat in my wheelchair, overwhelmed by the sense of failing the one individual who depended on me the most. Then, one morning in January, I woke up to silence. I forced myself to get up and look out the window. There was a tall, gray-bearded biker with motorcycle boots jogging next to my son, high-fiving him when they were done, just like they always did.
He came back every day after that. This stranger performed our 2.4-mile habit every day of the week, on weekends, and on holidays, even when it was cold and he was worn out. Connor couldn’t say much; he just typed “Run. Friend.” on his iPad. Glad. I tried to follow up with the man to thank him, but by the time I got my wheelchair to the door, he was already gone. Then one morning, Connor came home from his run with a folded note in his shaky hands.
The biker, whose name was Marcus Webb, sent a message asking to meet so he could tell me “what your son did for me.” I finally met him up close at the coffee shop. He was about sixty, had Marine Corps tattoos on his arms, and his rough voice shook as he showed me a picture of his son Jamie, a young redheaded man with freckles and a big smile. Jamie had severe autism, loved to run, and died two years ago during his morning route after having a seizure and falling three blocks from home.
Marcus said that anguish had ruined him. He had lived through conflict zones in Iraq, but after Jamie died, he lost everything: his job, his marriage, his sobriety, and his will to live. On the second anniversary of Jamie’s death, he loaded his service handgun and made the decision that it would be his last night on Earth. That morning, on what he thought would be his last motorcycle ride, he went by the sidewalk where his son had died and saw Connor at our front door, rocking and humming, just like his boy used to do.
He witnessed me struggle to explain from my wheelchair that I couldn’t run, saw Connor’s meltdown start, and saw, in that instant, his son’s last morning and his biggest failure playing out in front of him. He parked his bike, approached without a plan, and began running alongside my crying, scared boy. Connor, who is usually wary of others, immediately trusted him. When they were done, Connor was calm and smiling. For the first time in two years, Marcus felt something apart from hopelessness: he felt like he had a purpose.
That night, he went home, emptied his revolver, locked it up, and made a choice: he would run with Connor every morning and be the guardian for my kid that he thought he had failed to be for Jamie. Since then, Marcus has kept sober, gotten a job, started therapy, and organized his life around a mission that starts at 6 AM sharp. He turned down a promotion that would have changed his start time because he wanted to stick with Connor’s routine instead of getting paid more.
Now he is regarded as family—repairing things around the house, maintaining the lawn, and supporting us in every way that truly counts. On Connor’s fourteenth birthday yesterday, Marcus brought a motorcycle-shaped cake and a card that said, “You are my purpose.” My brother. My buddy. Thanks for providing me a cause to stay alive. Connor, who is not fond of physical contact, embraced Marcus tightly for a full minute, causing both of them to cry.
People think that a tough biker is just being nice when they see him running with a “disabled kid.” They don’t know that my kid saved the life of a veteran who was about to kill himself. Every morning at 6 AM, in leather and motorcycle boots, two improbable people are quietly dragging each other back from the edge, one step, one mile, and one miracle at a time.
