The Boy in the Chair
I walked to school during my grade school and high
school years. I know. I know.
Now comes all the comments about it being uphill both ways – ha, ha, ha. But I just say it as a matter of fact, as an
objective reporter if there can be such a thing these days. It was just over a mile to St. Jude Grade
School from my house. It was a good four
miles from my house to Premontre High School.
My route to school always took me up Murphy Drive to Westfield.
Westfield was a long block and there was,
as a matter of fact a hill on the east end.
It was not a two-way uphill hill.
I went down the hill in the morning and climbed the hill on my way home. Besides the hill, there were two other
unusual things about Westfield.
On the opposite side that I walked on there was a
house, a little past the middle of the block, where there was a collie dog
sitting on the couch, paws resting on the back, and face looking right out the
big picture window. He was a full-sized
collie dog, just like Lassie from television.
They were the only people in all of the neighborhoods around my house
with a collie dog. Somehow, he always
looked happy to see me. He’d usually
bark a couple of times. No one ever came
to shoo him down from the couch, or see what he was barking at. If they would have, then I probably would
have heard the dog’s name. It always
made me smile to see him.
Just three houses down from the collie dog, there was
a boy. The first couple of years that I
walked to school I intentionally didn’t look at him. That was because I just didn’t know how to
deal with the way he made me feel. It
was always the same every day. They
would have the main door swung wide open and the boy was behind the screen
door, always looking out. I felt that he
was looking out at me.
The boy never sat still. His arms were always moving and his head was
usually cocked to one side. He was
sitting in a wheel chair. I didn’t know
anyone else who sat in a wheel chair. I
felt sorry for him. I was pretty sure
that he must have always had to be in that chair. He was always there. He was always wearing pajamas. Most days I just couldn’t cope with the
feelings I had, so I’d just try hard not to look; I kept may eyes fixed on the
sidewalk right in front of me.
I asked my mom about him. She had seen him too. She explained that he seemed to have some
condition called cerebral palsy. He confirmed
what I feared, that he probably was in that wheel chair all the time. I asked if he was ever going to get better;
she said, “Probably not.”
I confessed that I felt sad to see him, so I usually
didn’t look. She asked me, “Did you ever
think of waving hello?” I hadn’t. “Why don’t you try it some time? I think his mom puts him in the doorway
because he wants to watch you and the other kids walking to or from school.” I made no promises.
A couple of weeks later though, I couldn’t take it the
pressure anymore. I crossed over to his
side of the street, and when I got in front of his house I turned and faced him,
I waved and I blurted out, “Hi!” The boy
in the chair got very animated. His face
seemed happier; I think he was trying to smile.
His smile didn’t quite work, but somehow I knew that he was trying very
hard to smile. For the first time I didn’t
feel uncomfortable; I felt kind of good inside.
Every day after that I always stopped to wave and say
hi to the boy in the chair. One time, a
lady, I think it was his mom, came up behind him and she put her hands on his
shoulders and smiled at him. She kissed
him on the top of the head. Then she
looked up and saw me watching them. I
waved at her, and she waved back and smiled at me.
A few weeks later it was the end of the school
year. I didn’t have a reason to go down
Westfield during summer vacation. On the
first day of school in the fall I turned down Westfield on my usual way to
school. I kind of felt bad about not
going that way all summer. When I got to
the house with the collie dog I was disappointed that he wasn’t in the window.
I was wondering what happened to the collie when I
realized that I had almost walked right past the boy. The front door of the house was shut. He wasn’t there.
All these years I have tried to not think too much
about happened to them. It hurt when I
did. I wished I could have known their
names, especially the boy in the chair. I
wonder if I would have had the courage to go up the walk to the front porch if
his mom would have opened the door that one day and invited me closer. I hope that I would have. It took me years of reflecting to reach the
point where I understood the importance of acknowledging another little
boy. Stopping, waving and saying “Hi”
would have to do, since that is all I did.
I can’t fix it now. I wish I
could.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Comments
Post a Comment