It's Your Harley Now, Mum - Jenny's Ride Of Remembrance

Jenny feels her son’s spirit when she hits the highway

- Julie Jacobson

Jarred Townsend loved red roses. Tragically, he will never get to see the beautifully detailed bloom his mum Jenny Hibbert has bought to attach to his treasured Harley Davidson when she rides it in memory of her eldest son next month.

Jarred, 24, died in October 2017, less than two years after being diagnosed – just before Christmas 2015 – with an aggressive form of acute myeloid leukaemia.

On September 7, his devastated mum will take part in the New Zealand leg of the Women’s Riders World Relay, on Jarred’s 1690cc Harley, the bike he gifted to her, the bike, she tearfully says, “He should have been riding.”

Jarred was born to ride. He was conceived at around the same time Jenny bought her first motorbike, a Triumph Tiger. She had just mastered the kick start when she fell pregnant, but the bike was sold to buy a pram and other baby gear.

“Jarred always dreamed of owning a Harley Davidson – he always wanted one,” tells Jenny. Cruelly, he only had it for the briefest time.

He underwent stem cell treatment – sister Letesha was the donor and spent her 21st birthday in hospital with her brother – and three lots of chemotherapy before being told there was nothing more doctors could do for him.

Dying wish