The Ride, the Rose, and the Resurrection

One of the happier moments in Carole Stieler’s life was on that day in 2006 when her husband, author David Charles Stieler, brought home a 1990 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Flying in their vintage airplane or cruising in their classic Corvette were enjoyable adventures but experiencing life from the seat of a motorcycle offered a perspective that no other form of transportation could provide. This couple from rural Michigan had no way of knowing that the motorcycle’s arrival would mark the beginning of their final journey through life as they knew it. In The Ride, the Rose, and the Resurrection, David narrates their story of how a horrific hit-and-run motorcycle crash tore life out from under this middle-class American family. He tells of both his and Carole’s psychological, spiritual, and physical battles to survive their near-death experience, and he communicates the harsh realities of the financial and insurance issues related to such an accident. This memoir not only offers a true account of the battle between life and death but also shares stories of compassion and suspicion, companionship and abandonment, and religion and faith, in which forgiveness becomes the key to resurrection.