In the late Fifties, when I was seven or eight, we moved into a new house on Aspen Hill Road in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. At the same time Stephen’s family moved in three doors down the street. Stephen was my age and we were in the same class at school. Naturally, we played together and became friends.
Stephen was kind of a wimpy kid. He couldn’t do, or wouldn’t try, a lot of the daredevil stuff I was always doing. But we got along ok. He was smart, and good at board games, so we played a lot of Risk and Monopoly. Sometimes we fought imaginary battles with toy soldiers. Pro tip – sound effects are everything.
A couple of times, when I went to see if he wanted to play, his Mom said he was sick. He started being absent from school. When I hadn’t seen him for a few days, I asked my parents. They said he was in the hospital. Something wrong with his blood. I knew about hemophilia, so I asked if that was what he had. They said it was something like that.
One day at dinner my folks told me he was out of the hospital. They said he was still too sick to go to school but if I wanted I could go to his house and play with him on the weekends. But I would have to be very careful. Strictly no roughhousing.
So I started going over on Saturday afternoons. We would go down into the basement and play board games or just talk about imaginary stuff, the way young boys do. We had a good time and often spent all afternoon in the basement until his mother came to tell me it was time to go.
Then he was in the hospital again, for longer this time. Then he was out again and my parents told me he had asked if I wanted to come over to play. I got the no-roughhousing speech again.
This time it was different. He was frail. It seemed like his slender arms and legs were too heavy for him. He seemed to have trouble concentrating. In the middle of a desultory game of Risk, he suddenly asked if I wanted to wrestle. When I started to explain that I couldn’t, he just jumped on me. I tried to gently escape but, as weak as he was, he clung to me. Within seconds he was breathing hard with the effort. I was worried he would hurt himself and I would be blamed. He was on top of me, and I could feel his heart beating so hard. I felt something else too, though I didn’t understand it at the time. I felt his loneliness and sadness and his fear. I felt his desperate need to be held. After a few minutes he seemed to feel better, his breathing became more regular, and I could feel his fear subside a little. Then he rolled off and we played until his Mom came to chase me home.
This happened four or five times. My parents would tell me he had asked for me. I would go over. He would quickly lose interest in whatever game we were playing and jump on me. He knew I could easily overpower him and I was just pretending to wrestle, letting him win, making sure not to bruise or injure him. He didn’t care. He needed to be touched so bad that he just didn’t care. Then we would play games again, as if nothing had happened.
Then he was gone again. I would ask my parents and they would say he was in the hospital. After a couple of weeks when I asked, they said he died. I found out later it was because he had leukemia.
I think I learned a lot on those few Saturday afternoons in Stephen’s basement, though I didn’t understand the lessons until I was older. It took a long time to understand what I learned, and I’m still not sure I understand. I learned that one has to pay attention to know when people are in trouble. I learned that one has to be there for people when they need help. I learned something about the human need for physical contact, and the amazing power of touch. Eventually I understood some of those lessons. I still remember them, and I remember the time I spent with my friend Stephen. He was a courageous little boy. I often think of him and our time together.