"Whose little boy..."

The middle-aged man strode down the boulevard.  He was in a particularly good mood.  Viv had been pretty chipper today.  Some days were better than others, of course, and on this day she seemed almost normal.  Almost.

As he proceeded on his walk, a child caught his eye.  No older than three, perhaps, he was nevertheless all alone.  He did not seem lost or afraid; in fact, he seemed to be waiting for someone.  He sat by himself on a retaining wall, and as the man approached, he raised his head.  He had the most beautiful blue eyes that the man had ever seen.

"Why, hello, Son!"  the gentleman said.  "Whose little boy are you?"

The boy didn't answer the question.  He said, "Play wit me!" and raised up pudgy hands.

"Do you want me to take you home?"

"Play wit me!"

So right there on the sidewalk, the man took the boy's hand.  They sang songs, the little boy starting. "Twinkle Twinkle", "Muffin Man", and "Deep and Wide".  Then they played clapping games.  "Pat-a-Cake" and "Ram Sam Sam".  Then they just joined hands and walked in a circle together.  A lightness began to fill him that he hadn't felt for years.  The boy said, "Lift me up!!"  He did as he was told.  The boy gave him an enormous hug and a kiss that smelled of milk and cookies.  "Bye bye!" he cried and ran off down the street.  The man watched him until he rounded the corner and disappeared from view.

Many years passed.  The middle-aged man was no longer middle aged.  Viv was no longer pretty chipper.  Viv was constantly on the verge of disaster.  One day she was drunk, the next she was sunk deep in depression, and another day saw her preparing her will.  She rarely spoke to him.  It was obvious that she blamed him for their misfortune, although he couldn't see how it could possibly have been his fault.

He walked down the lane, barely conscious of his surroundings.  To be honest, he was afraid of what he'd find when he came back home.  He nearly bumped into the boy before he realized there was someone else with him.

"Well, hello, young man!  Whose little boy are you?"  The boy, probably 10 years old, looked at him sternly.  "You asked me that same thing before!"  His blue eyes were piercing.  Somehow the man made the connection--that child he had seen so many years before.  He remembered those eyes.  What he hadn't noticed before was that his eyes were beautifully complimented by hair the color of an autumn forest.

"Are you from around here?"  asked the man.  He wasn't sure, really, what to say.  Viv had never been able to have children--not after that first disaster.  With no little hands to hold, he had filled his days with grown up pleasures.  Speaking with this child now was uncomfortable.

The boy ignored the question.  "You're sad, aren't you?  Why?"

He didn't know why he answered.  "My wife is very sick.  She's very sad, and it makes me sad that I can't help her get better."

"Give her this,"  the little boy said.  He handed the man a small package with a yellow bow.

"What's this?"  asked the man.

"Just give it to her.  She will like it."  The boy walked away without another word.

The man continued home, He couldn't get over it.  How could that boy have remembered him?  How could he have never seen him since that time so many years before?  It was so unreal.  He entered his house, looking for his wife.  It was not hard to find her.  Simply go to the couch, and if nobody was there, head for the bedroom.  He found her in the bed, huddled on her side.  It was obvious that she had been there all day.  "Viv, are you all right?  Vivian?"

His wife, once so beautiful and loving, looked at him and the hopelessness in her eyes broke his heart.  He reached out to stroke her hair, and the present caught her eye. "For me?  Do you really think that anything you could give me would help?"

He had totally forgotten that he was still carrying the boy's gift.  He said, "The strangest thing happened today.  I bumped into a boy while I was walking home.  Viv, he had the most amazing eyes!  They were so blue, so beautiful..."

"Jason had blue eyes, remember?"

Jason.  The son they'd named for him.  How could he not remember?  He had seemed normal and healthy when he was born, and he had a fuzz of red hair and the bluest eyes he'd ever seen.  Nobody could explain how it happened.  He was healthy and normal at birth, and then six hours later he was gone.  It defied explanation.

He was devastated, of course, but life continued for him.  He had his job, his life that took him to the office and adult companionship every day.  Viv never recovered.  She never went back to work.  She spent the first weeks after Jason's death in a confusion of denial, anger, vindictiveness, and pain.  It spiraled out of control, and it all ended with her being committed to an asylum for several months.  Finally, she managed to convince her psychiatrist that she would be able to deal with everyday life, and he was thankful to take her home.  At first, she seemed better.  The hospital had given them a tiny lock of their son's red hair and a picture, and Jason had gone to the jeweler's, bought a locket, and gave it to Vivian.  It had seemed to help, for a while.  But after several years, the chain broke and the locket disappeared.  Without it, she seemed to have lost what little connection she'd had with life.  She began to spiral downward again.  But they both knew that she wouldn't go back to the mental ward.  He would take care of her as long as he could.  After that...

"Yes, he did, Vivian.  The bluest eyes I'd ever seen.  So beautiful..."

Vivian reached out, and for a moment he thought she would take his hand.  But no, she took the present.  "You say a boy gave this to me?  Do we know him?"

"No, he just said to give this to you, that you would like it."

"How strange.  What did he look like?"

He described the boy to her, but no light went off in her eyes.  He was a stranger to her as well.  She took the box and opened it.  A locket fell out.  And a note.  And a photo.  She picked up the photo--a beautiful boy with autumn-red hair and piercing blue eyes smiled at her, daring her to come out and play.  She picked up the note,

"Mommy, please don't be sad.  I am so alive here!  There are lots of other boys and girls to play with, and Grandpa and Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa love me and tell me funny stories about you.  Please stop blaming yourself, and please don't blame Daddy.  I love you, and I want you to find a little boy and give him the love you wanted to give me.  You should know how special you are--not every little boy gets to come from Heaven and give his mommy a present, but Jesus knows you need this back.  You lost it at the mall.  I love you bunches and bunches, Mommy, and I promise that I will be the first thing you see when you get to Heaven.  But please, find my brother before you see me.  He is waiting for you, too!  Love, Jason"

Tears streaming, Viv opened the locket.  The lock of hair and the photo were perfect--just as she'd left them.  The chain had been repaired, too, and was like new.  She put the locket around her neck and reached out for him.  He lay on the bed with her and they simply held each other.

Later that year, Viv and Jason were on a walk, down that same boulevard.  "Right here, Sweetheart,"  he said.  This is where I saw him.  Wait, what's this?"

There was a pamphlet on the ground.  They picked it up.  It was a pamphlet stating the need for foster families, that there were many children right here in their own communities that needed parents to love them.  Jason looked at Viv, and they ran home.  A new chapter in their lives was about to begin.  They knew that it would end with a new son to love--perhaps not a baby, but definitely a brother for Jason.

Goodbye

It had been a month--the longest month in her life.
One month of empty arms,
Of phantom pains,
Of first seeing the empty cradle,
and then the blank spot
where the cradle used to be.

No baby.

The house was a mess.
The rest of the family was forgotten,
All that mattered was that she went to the hospital pregnant
And came back home empty.

Time ticked on, minute by minute,
Each one longer than the last.
Nothing was ever going to change.
The hole in her heart,
The ache in her arms
The seizing pain in her heart,
She was sure these would stay with her forever.

She knew she should get up.
She did have other children,
a family,
And they needed her, too.
But she couldn't.
She simply couldn't.

And so she sat in the chair,
Staring at nothing,
Until her husband took her hand
And led her to bed.
Where they lay
Two statues
Unable to come together in their grief.

Until one day…

It started prosaically enough.
She had to go to the bathroom.
To get to the bathroom, she had to pass through the dining room.
And so she did,
And suddenly she was enveloped in love.
It was electric, alive, and full of joy.

When it happened, she wasn't sure what to think.
Had she really experienced that?
Had she been--just for a moment--
more totally alive than she had been since this happened--
perhaps
since she was born?

She wasn't sure
So she tried it again.
And again.
Back and forth for nearly an hour, it seemed.

And then,
just like that
it went away.

Gone, but not fully.
Not completely.
The stillness of her heart,
The death of her soul
Was gone,
Replaced by a tiny echo of the enormity of that experience.

She began to heal.
She started cleaning her house.
She went to the kitchen and made dinner.
She took the children in her arms,
And she took her husband to her bed.

Life would return--
if not to normal--
then at least to livable.

Later, friends would ask about the change,
and she would try to explain,
but she'd always end by simply shaking her head.
How could she make them understand?
What could help them comprehend that her baby,
in that electric moment
was saying "goodbye".

Such a hard word, goodbye,
but how important to hear.
For this goodbye, she came to understand,
Was not a goodbye into the nothingness of death,
The stillness of the grave.

It was a goodbye for now,
a passage from life into new life,
And it was a promise as well.

I have said "goodbye", but someday
I will see you again,
And then I will tell you
"Hello!"

I will wait for you.
This was a promise that she instinctively believed.
And though her arms were still empty,
Her soul,
Finally,
Was full.