“Are you sure about this?” I asked, looking warily at the bike and comparing it to my own height.

I was younger and shorter than I am now. Not so young and short that I needed a trike, but not so old and tall that I could ride an adult bike. I often described myself as a worry-wart, safety first and all. And this bike rental place was not doing it for me.

We were on Mackinac Island. If you’ve ever been there, you know that the only motorized thing you’ll see is an ambulance. All you have are horses, bikes, or your own two feet. So here we were at a bike rental place, and I was trying the smallest bike size that they had. My feet barely touched the ground when I pointed my toes all the way, and the bike had gears. My bike at home didn’t have gears; you pushed the pedals backwards to stop.

“It’ll be fine,” my dad assured me.

“Do you have a helmet?” I asked the lady attending to us.

“No,” the woman shook her head, “sorry.”

“It’ll be alright,” my sister, Christena, said. “Let’s just go!”

I forced a laugh. “OK.”

With a little bit of extra effort, I was following my sister and father down the long, winding road that was Mackinac’s border. My sister, who was a speed demon, soon out-pedaled us, and we had to flag her down. My dad stayed behind me and taught me how to change the gears so that I could ride over the hills more easily.

The view was beautiful. For the most part we had beautiful trees on one side and Lake Huron on the other. Lake Huron was rather rocky, especially along the shore where jagged rocks yawned as if tired of being stuck together in their piles — which had lots of spiders. Lake Huron was picturesque nonetheless.

But soon, however, my sister got too far ahead again. My legs were getting tired, and I was ready to be done. I didn’t want to catch up to my older sister. I just wanted to do enough to get back before the 7 p.m. return deadline for the bikes.

“How much farther?” I asked.

“Just a little bit,” my dad replied. “About 2 miles.”

“Good,” I sighed. I didn’t know back then that a mile was 5,280 feet, or I might’ve felt more discouraged than relieved.

Suddenly, I had an itch on my nose. It was one of those horrible itches that won’t leave you alone if you leave it alone. I had learned at home how to ride with one hand, so I felt confident enough to reach up and scratch it. The bike swerved towards the tree line, and I panicked. I righted it too quickly. The edge of the road loomed before me. I jerked my feet backwards to try and stop myself, but by the time I remembered the handbrakes I was already over the edge.

I lost the bike as I fell, and I landed on top of it. My ankle was caught in the middle of two huge rocks. I paid no attention to the spiders creeping near me as I struggled to breathe. My breaths came in inhuman wheezes, and I felt like I was suffocating. I would’ve panicked more had I not gotten the wind knocked out of me once before this.

My dad braked hurriedly and rushed to my aid, totally neglecting his rented bicycle as he grabbed my outstretched hand. He pulled and pulled, and I tried to push myself off the rocks. My two concerns were breathing and getting free.

A man, seeing our plight, stopped. My dad climbed into the spidery rocks while the complete and total stranger grabbed my little hand. I had never been so grateful or trusting of a stranger as I was in that moment.

Between the combined pushing and pulling, they got me out. By now people were starting to gather around the little redhead who was lying on the ground trying to regain her breath.

All I could think about was the pain in my middle and how much I wanted my mom. People were asking me if I was OK as I lay on the road, not feeling strong enough to get up and walk.

“Are you OK, honey?” someone asked.

This woman was different. She had such a maternal air that I looked to her. She was squatting down in front of me. I don’t remember anything about her except the tone of her voice and that she wore a sun hat. She didn’t reach out and grab my hand or pull me into a hug or stroke me like my mother would’ve, but she was there and she reminded me of my mother. God had sent me a replacement when my real mother couldn’t be there.

“I’m fine,” I finally gasped. “Thanks.”

As my dad started to fix the broken chain on my bike, the people started to disband. It was painful to stand, so I lay on the ground while my dad labored.

“Do I need to call an ambulance?” he asked.

I looked at the bike. I couldn’t walk 2 miles, I was smart enough even at that age to know that. But a bike I could pedal and lean on the handlebars.

“I think I can ride,” I replied.

I stood and mounted. It was easier riding the bike than walking. A little farther down we met Christena.

“I waited for you at the hotel,” she explained, “but people just kept on passing me and passing me. Did your chain break or something?”

I was too fatigued to reply, so I let my dad do it. Christena gaped in shock, and she didn’t have to say she was glad I was OK for me to know she was thinking it.

But then we arrived in town and had to return the bikes. The walk to the hotel had never seemed so long. We passed rows of shops, and just getting to the next bench was a strain and a miracle for me.

Finally, I sat down in exhaustion. “I don’t think I can make it all the way,” I admitted as the pain in my side grew.

We weren’t even out of town yet, and we still had to make it past the remainder of the shops, go past the docks, and walk a little further by some historic-looking buildings, then walk up a hill to our hotel. The distance had never seemed overpowering before, but now it seemed interminable and unthinkable.

“Maybe I can flag down a taxi,” my dad wondered.

“Hey,” Christena said, “isn’t that Grandma and Aunt Melanie?”

My dad looked at the two women with shopping bags over their arms. “I think it is!” he exclaimed. “Good eye, Christena.”

He went to go talk to them. Soon Aunt Melanie was on her way back to the hotel to alert my mother, and Grandma was sitting beside me on the bench. I leaned against her as she rubbed my back, soothing the pain in my side for a time as my dad went through the rigmarole of finding a taxi.

A light drizzle had begun, and I wrapped my sweater tighter around me. I began to become numb to the cold and wind and rain and even to my grandma’s voice. I began to drift off in a way I never had before. I felt warm. I realize that these sound like symptoms of hypothermia, but, as this was in July, that’s wholly out of the question. I believe it was just the utter exhaustion and my body’s hard work to repair whatever had happened in my rib cage. I have never known great pain, but that was the worst pain I’ve ever had in my life. I drifted into a deep sleep.

When I woke up, it was about an hour later and a cab was waiting for us. The driver took me home where my mother consoled me and nursed me. We never found out why my side hurt. My mom said I had bruised ribs; I’m inclined to think they were broken.

But my point is that I shouldn’t have gone through any of that. Not in the way you’re probably thinking. Like my dad and sister made me get on the bike or the woman couldn’t go and find a helmet or we couldn’t find a different bike to rent. That’s not what I mean at all! I should’ve been dead. Or at least paralyzed or something. My neck might’ve been broken on the jagged rocks, my skull might’ve cracked, I could’ve drowned in Lake Huron not two feet behind where I landed (if anyone finds a pair of sunglasses in Lake Huron, they’re probably mine), a broken rib might’ve punctured my lung or heart. God saved me for some reason. Someone—I’m not saying who—wanted me dead; God had other plans.