The hardest room was the last one.
A five-year-old boy named Christopher. Terminal brain cancer. Days left. Maybe hours.
Big Jim knocked softly on the door.
“May we come in?”
Christopher’s mother looked up. Her eyes were red, hollow, empty of everything except exhaustion and grief.
“He’s not really conscious anymore. He probably won’t know you’re here.”
Big Jim walked in anyway. Slowly. Quietly. He knelt beside Christopher’s bed.
“Hey buddy. Santa came to see you.”
Christopher didn’t respond. His eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow.
Big Jim reached into his bag and pulled out a small teddy bear wearing a Santa hat. He tucked it under Christopher’s arm.
He started singing. Softly. “Silent Night.”
One by one, the other bikers in the hallway joined in. Forty voices, deep and rough and beautiful, singing a lullaby for a dying child.
Christopher’s mother broke. She collapsed against Big Jim’s shoulder, sobbing. This stranger. This scary-looking biker. She clung to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that was falling apart.
Big Jim held her. Didn’t say anything. Just held her while his brothers sang.
When the song ended, Christopher’s mother looked up.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “He loves music. Even now. I think he heard that.”
Big Jim nodded. “Then we’ll keep singing.”
