We were just kids on the playground, sitting atop the Monkey Bars. The old rusty, red (probably lead painted) steel assembly was a modern safety nightmare. Bolts jutted out at all the joints. It was at least ten feet high, and six feet around. You could climb to the top from the inside or scale the outer rungs. The crazy kids would stand on the top, the epitome of danger. Most of us would just hook our legs over an outside bar and hang upside down until our faces turned blue. This day, however, we weren’t playing, just sitting on the bars, atop the rickety old structure. It was, quite possibly, the first time I ever had an actual conversation of substance with the opposite sex. Her name was Sam.
I’d had a crush on her since Fourth grade, when my family had moved to the small Arkansas town. She was smart, cute, outspoken, especially for the Fourth grade, and wore her long brunette hair in a ponytail, most days. I was a chubby shy kid, with glasses no less. I was the un-coolest fella in the class. And I fell in love with her from across the room on the first day of Mrs. Speigle’s Fourth grade class. Let the Charlie Brown cartoons of unrequited love for the Little Red-Haired Girl come to mind here. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cannot wash the taste of it from your heart.
There was a thing we did back in the Olden Days. We sent hand-written notes to people via messengers, usually a trusted pal. This I did, to my dear Sam, through my buddy Tommy. No note returned. No reply was verbally passed to him. None. I don’t remember the number of notes I’d sent her, but it must have been too many. I was in class one day when there was a knock. The teacher, Mr. Shepard, walked to the door, opened it and went out into the hall. A few moments later, he stuck his head inside and motioned towards me. “Kevin, come here for a moment, please.” The words sent a chill down my spine. Nervous, I did as asked. Out in the hall was Sam. “He keeps sending me notes. I don’t like it. I asked him to stop, but he won’t.” Mr. Shepard told her he would take care of it. The notes would stop, “Right, Kevin?” to which I shamefully nodded. “Yes sir”, I confirmed. That seemed to satisfy her, and she turned and went back to her class. “Kevin,” said Mr. Shepard, “sometimes girls just don’t like notes. When they say no, you must respect it, okay?” What else could I say? “Yes sir” and that was the end of it.
Until this day, probably a year or two later. We found ourselves alone on the playground, after school, talking. We had been riding our bikes and had both stopped to play. She had pity, and no hard feelings for my past behavior, so she talked to me. She was sad. Maybe the saddest girl I’d ever seen. She talked about her dad being killed. That’s a pretty tough subject for anyone to give advice on, much less a grade school kid. I listened, though. I heard her. She seemed to appreciate that. I told her that she should just take “one day at a time”, mainly because I had heard adults say it. She said that’s what she was doing. It doesn’t sound like much, but that conversation has stayed with me all of these years.
Sam didn’t go out with me until after we had graduated high school. We got married in ‘84 and spent almost twenty years of our lives together and raised four fantastic children. She would’ve been fifty-eight years old on July 28th, had she not left this world in 2004. We fought a ten-year battle with her bipolar disorder before it ended in suicide. She left a lot of her life unfinished. Sam was the kindest, smartest, most outgoing person I had ever known. She home-schooled our kids, loved with all of her passion, and never met a stranger. She drew a shy, sensitive husband out of the dark and into the light, sometimes kicking and screaming. She’d be proud of these kids, and grandkids. I see her in them every single day. They remind me that we’re only here for a fleeting moment of time. Savor it. Our lives take many turns, and we sometimes get lost. Let’s all be the person to turn to when that happens. Listen. Understand. Love.
Anyone who needs to can call 855-CRISIS-1 (855-274-7471) or text “TN” to 741-741, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Crisis Services and Suicide Prevention can help you find a way through the crisis. You can also call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, also 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Rolling Stones 