A Heartwarming, Yet Sad Story:

As a young girl growing up in an idyllic, woodsy suburban town due west of Boston, despite problems that resulted in much difficulty in my relating/interacting with other people, I did many, if not most of the things that other kids did. During my preteen years, especially during the summer months, the kids on our street, including me and my sister, would often get together, playing things such as jump-rope, hop-scotch and 10-20, Chinese jumprope, hide-and-seek, statue, even "cowboys and Indians", and many other games.

Hula hoops were also a big fad back then in the mid-to-late 1950's, so the kids on our block would often get together and play with our hula hoops all day long, too. There was also swimming at Walden Pond, and Lake Cochichuate, frequent bike-riding, and even walking through the woods, catching toads, and an occasional frog in the swamp, and also playing on a big boulder on our street known as Balancing Rock, because it sat in a semi-balanced position on a much, much larger ledge of rock, overlooking one of the neighbor's houses.

Every day in the summer, we'd play in the street, or in somebody's yard, or on what was known as the Common Land, down near the other end of our street, which had swings, see-saws, and a jungle gym, to boot.

During the fall, when we'd rake leaves, we'd rake a big pile of leaves and play in the pile afterwards, and, during the winter months, there was skating on a small pond called Lone Pond, and, on weekends, holiday, and mid-winter vacations, the kids on our street would all get together and go sledding or flying-saucering from morning until around sundown. All of the above past-times were lots of fun, and my sister and I participated enthusiastically. My brother hadn't even been born yet.

On one side of us lived a young boy, a year behind me in school, who'd been born with cerebral palsy and needed to use crutches to get around. Despite the fact that Johnny had had several operations, in the hopes that he'd eventually be able to walk, they did not work, and, several mornings per week, a physical therapist would come to their home to give Johnny the necessary work-outs and exercises that he needed in order to stay limber.

Their backyard was also one of the back yards that we played in, equipped with a jungle-gym and a swingset, where we all played frequently. johnny also had a tricycle, which also enabled him to get around, and to join us when we rode bikes around the immediate block. Johnny lived with his father and a live-in housekeeper, never knowing his real mother. Although the story had it that Johnny's mother had died of cancer when he was a tiny infant, we learned the truth later.

Johnny's real mother was mentally ill and institutionalized, and the father had been told that he and his son could move into our community on the condition that he not bring his wife around at all, a condition to which Johnny's father acquiesced.

Johnny frequently played with the rest of us, inventing his own way of participating and keeping up with our games whenever we'd play kickball or soccer, or even hop-scotch and 10-20. He was a very cheerful, upbeat person, and very bright, and sometimes even used his tricycle to keep up with us. During the; winter, he often went sledding and flying-saucering with us.

The things he really couldn't do, however, were jumprope, Chinese jumprope, skating, and hide and seek, or climbing balancing rock, or climbing trees. Due to his cheerful, optomistic nature, and to the fact that he struggled to overcome his handicap, he was a popular figure on our street and in school, had many friends, and he also attended the regular public schools. One year, Johnny even gave a huge birthday party, complete with games, a delicious birthday cake, and the typical party favors, to which all the kids on our block, including me, were invited, and was lots of fun.

All this began to change, however, when Johnny entered Junior High School (as it was called back then), and his teens. The father then remarried, after which he, Johnny's new stepmother, and johnny himself moved to a different part of town. Shortly thereafter, Johnny's father and stepmother had a child together, who had no handicaps of any kind to speak of.

Unfortunately, Johnny's new stepmother was an extraordinarily eccentric, domineering person, who, after assessing the situation, could not and would not deal with the fact that Johnny had been born with a severe physical handicap. Moreover, she made it clear to Johnny that he wasn't welcome around the house. The father, a meek, passive and acquiesent person, went along with the stepmother, who sent Johnny to a boarding school, which Johnny didn't like, and the stepmother totally got the upper hand.

Johnny did not take well to having been sent to boarding school, which resulted in his frequent running away from the boarding school to return home, only to be sent back to the boarding school by his parents, namely his stepmother. Eventually, Johnny, (who by this time had reached high school), took an apartment in Cambridge's Porter Square area, commuting daily (5 days a week) back and forth, to and from our high school, via train and taxi.

Although the kids really liked Johnny, and he made many friends at the high school, this, in no way compensated for the bitter rejection that he'd suffered at the hands of his family. His whole situation was much tougher on him than many, if not most people, realized. Johnny grew his hair long and, like many other kids back then, began acting in a freakish way, and even got into taking drugs.

Three years after graduating from high school, my sister, brother and I learned firsthand that Johnny had committed suicide. This was a terrible thing, especially when we remembered how he'd been so much a part of our community when we were all much younger, how we'd all played together, and so on. We were all sorry to learn of Johnny's untimely death, which had undoubtedly been brought about by the cold, unremitting betrayal and rejection of him by his family, who had spurned him because of something that he had been born with and beyond his control.

When I think about it, I wonder what would've become of Johnny had he lived, and appreciate all the more the fact that I'm lucky to have a loving, strong, stable family that saw that I had potential and did not give up on me, as Johnny's family had given up on him.