Sunbeams

Sunbeams. Those rays that shine through after a storm. The rays that penetrate the sky. Those rays that signal something warm and soothing is coming. The rays that every child knows how to draw, even though they call them arms. Rays that remind me of Blaise.

Not everyone’s first experience with death is pleasant. Maybe no one’s first experience, or any second encounter, is. Or maybe everyone’s is, only, he’s unable to have such a perspective at the time. My first experience with death, however, was pleasant. Comforting, even.

I met Blaise when we were both Sparkies in AWANA at Bayshore Bible Church. AWANA was like summer camp, but year-round, or like boy scouts, but co-ed. We met once a week and played games, sang songs, listened to Bible stories, and recited Bible verses in order to receive patches to put on our colored vests, pens, bucks to spend on toys, and certificates of a job well done! AWANA was capitalized because it was an acronym for Approved Workman are not Ashamed. Just another instance of emphasizing work in my life. While most kids my age—seven—loved AWANA because of the awesome games, I loved reciting verses, because I wasn’t normal.

In fact, every time I did play a game, my mom would pay me a dollar. Because everyone “had to participate,” they would let me keep score if I asked nicely and politely refused to play their silly, barbaristic games. Surprising that they would let a seven-year-old be trusted with such valuable information, but I remained impartial for all of my twelve years in AWANA. In fact, when we got a new game director when I was in high school, and he told me I couldn’t keep score anymore, I became extremely resentful and openly defied him by refusing to play (without even getting paid a dollar!). Instead, I sat on the counter like I always had, now trying to avoid dodge balls flung by angry, hormonal boys who had no other way to express their sexual frustration but by lunging their balls at the girls they secretly admired across the room. Or I sat on the ground. As a Sparkie, I would sit on the curb when we were taken outside to play. Our church was adjacent to a grassed ditch, which made rolling down a hill or practicing for Colorado mountains’ incline or being the last one to get picked for Red Rover more fun, if Red Rover could ever be fun, than any flat plain ever could. It also made keeping score more difficult, because outside games rarely had scores, so I would sit and watch with Blaise.

Blaise, you see, didn’t play games either, but it wasn’t because he didn’t want to. He was a seven-year-old boy, after all, and if he had been like other seven-year-old boys, I’m sure he would’ve been diagnosed with ADHD and been on Ritalin for most of his seven-year-old life, but he wasn’t like other seven-year-old boys. Blaise was in a wheelchair, but, to me, I viewed his situation more as “Blaise gets to roll around in a sweet wheelchair all day." His wheelchair was so fascinating to me that my best friend and I would fight over who was going to push him around. I didn’t pity Blaise, and I didn’t want to be in his wheelchair, but I saw the good sides of his wheelchair, the shiny, bright, free sides. I had Blaise for company when I didn’t want to be the weird one not playing games, and Blaise had me for support when anyone dared to make fun of him.

Not that people made fun of a kid in a wheelchair much. But one day Blaise came to AWANA with a shaved head. We were Sparkie friends. We were seven. I didn’t know. How do you explain that to a seven-year-old? I pushed him down the ramp, my hands slipping slightly on the plastic handles of his chair that was almost too tall and too heavy for me. I put his books in his backpack. I said see you next week, Blaise.

Balloons are shaped like bald heads, and they’re all the colors of the rainbow, and God loves all the boys and girls, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, so balloons must have made sense to everyone else. I certainly didn’t understand why we let balloons flying to their doom become our memento.

A coddled ninja turtle was carried solemnly up the aisle and placed gently beside his placid face. The worn gold edged red carpet on the prayer knee stool attached to the pew in front of me tried to comfort me by reminding me that how I prayed didn’t matter, but I was in someone else’s church, now, and I should kneel like everyone else. God took the balloons, the ninja turtle, my friend. God gave me sunbeams on that day like any other, that funeral like any other. They pierce through clouds and may mean nothing to you, but to me they mean everything. They mean a promise of hope and peace. How can you ever thank a friend you barely knew for such a priceless gift?