We in the neighborhood had a kid like this back in the mid sixties. “Little Joey”. Confined generally to the house and often to a wheelchair he was a lively spirit and a great little scholar. But he wanted to get out of that chair and go outside and play so badly that it was obvious to even ignorant self centered eight year old me. No go though….
Our parents often held little Joey up to us as the paragon of virtue they wanted us to be. At his funeral in our little church yard attended by the whole class we said good by to Joe, took one long last look at his sky blue coffin gleaming in the sun and went on with our lives.
When I was twenty two having occasion to be in there I stopped by his grave and thought the usual thoughts; where would he be now. Who would he have become, just clearing his four year degree (a high likelihood for paragons of virtue and good little boys). I doubted he’d be clowning his way thru the post high school yeas as I seemed to be doing. I looked in my mental rear view mirror at that coffin and it seemed so far back there now…
Somewere in my thirties again I stopped by his grave. He’d be married now with kids. Who would have been his wife? Where would they be living (in all likelihood within a mile of that very spot) Would his kids be little paragons of virtue too? One of them would be about eight years old now. Shook my head., said a prayer and wondered at how far far back in the rear view that patch of blue now was.
Well when I was about 63 I again found myself in the little church yard and again I stopped by the grave. I looked at the date of death, October 27, 1967. 1967!!! My habit had been to think the usual sad nostalgic thoughts but my mind was blank. They didn’t come. The sixty year old is not the twenty year old. The sixty year old has his own coffin looming just ahead of him, in the FRONT view. The sixty year old facing reality for the first time standing before that grave realizes that Joey was NEVER in the rear view mirror at all. That was just a box full of his dust. Joey had gone AHEAD of us and has been WAITING for us all this time. And so it goes with this little Texas guy. We view it as a loss and it breaks our hearts but the truth is he goes AHEAD and will be waiting.
And if we’re good little paragons of virtue we may yet see him again.
Thanks for that reflection.
Beautifully written.