Hopscotch
Hopscotch
Boys don’t play with girls
I must have been five or six at the time. It was in the late afternoon hours just before dinner. She'd come over and I would draw a hopscotch on the front sidewalk with the edge of a rock. Chalk would have been easier, but the rock worked. We were together and when we weren't hopping, we were skipping. She was the best skipper on Buckingham Dr. Single or Double Dutch it didn't matter. She just loved to skip. I wasn't very good at it, and I didn't care. My brothers and the kids across the street gave me the googly eyes. "You're going to get the cooties," they all said. What are the symptoms of the cooties? I didn't know but I was willing to chance it. I didn't care; I was hanging out with my first love. It was a happy time.
My angel
One day she stopped coming over. She had just disappeared. My mother pulled me aside and told me that God had to take her away. I was told later that she had a hole in her little heart. I was too young to understand what death was. Why would God take her away? She was an angel. She was my angel. I guess some angels get their wings early. Now, I had a hole in my heart, but I would have to live with it.
Anger
I was mad at God. I was grieving and, in those days, the seen and not heard era, I learned how to not be seen or heard. I remember looking out the window during class. Seeing St Theresa's church across the street. The house of God. We were taught to fear God, but I was more angry than fearful. Now looking back at those early grade school pictures, it's no wonder why I see a sad little boy. Sometimes I still think I'm that same sad little boy.
Coping skills
They say time heals hearts. I had to find ways to cope. I am writing this wishing I could have had therapy to handle my grief when I was a kid. I would have had better ways to cope. Instead, I learned how to cope by shutting down. I found ways to distract myself. In school that was doodling and daydreaming. At home it was drawing cartoons, being silly or trying to find something funny to hide the tears. It was all I could do to survive. Truth be told, I'm still doing that today. It's a little different now. Now it's a blog or a song. However, my strange ways of coping taught me something. Creativity. So, I guess it’s not all bad. Every happy clown hides a sad face. And I guess behind any wise-ass funny guy is a kid trying to survive.
Where the path leads
There is a walking path that circles a park near my home. I try to walk every day changing paths, so I don’t get too bored. The park consists of two ball diamonds, a parking lot, a public library and a small play area for kids. I don’t know if it was on lap one or lap six when I looked down and saw it. Right beside the play area on the pavement was the outlines of a hopscotch drawn with chalk. It wasn’t an ah-ha moment. In fact, I didn’t even think much about it at the time. It was planted in my mind for this moment and maybe it was there just to remind me not to forget. It’s funny when you write about things, things come around. It's like a farmer who forgot he planted seeds and suddenly out of the ground a gift. That hopscotch planted a seed in my brain and took me back to a sidewalk in the sixties. To two kids and how those moments shaped their lives.
The end is just the beginning
In my life, I have seen many young people who never had a chance to grow old and I struggle to justify why they were called out of this world so early. I know one thing, if I ever get to heaven God’s got some explaining to do. We are but a single grain of sand slipping threw the hourglass of eternity. Heaven may just be a hop, skip and jump away. But for now, when I see that hopscotch, I will do what have been doing for most of my life. I will walk around it.
Heaven smiles and angels wink
There are no coincedences
Blessings are for the eyes to see
The heart to behold
A for the soul to jump with joy
All you need is childlike faith
and a piece of chalk
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