Lifted beyond steps and wheels

Week 5, MKMMA, 10-29-15

I am not one for the holidays and the upcoming seasonal events. In fact, I will turn off my porch light and most all lights this Saturday night for halloween, as though that is a big deal since I live in the middle of 10 acres of trees I get very few visitors anyway. When the boys were younger Patti was the fun one. She rode the rides at Six Flags, took them trick-or-treating and all that stuff, I was the grumpy old man at the door. Some 20 years ago Patti was out with the boys knocking doors and I was doing the usual door-duty routine. Kids would come, get candy, yeah, yeah, you have candy now scram was pretty much my jolly self. A blonde headed little boy knocked and was holding two buckets. He held up one and took some candy and then asked if he could get some for his brother. The walk up to our house had 3 sets of steps, each set having about 10-12 steps, with a rather steep yard. I looked and at the bottom of the steps was a little guy, dressed in full costume, except, he was quadriplegic and his mother could not get him up the steps or the hill to the front door. I told the little blonde headed boy that we need to take the candy to his brother and let him get his own. Down the steps we go and the little boy is laughing and smiling. We reach the bottom and I stuck the bowl to the young man in the wheelchair. With great determination he worked his crippled hand around and took one piece and smiled with eyes that shone like diamonds. I told him that would not work, he would have to get more candy so his brother handed him his own bucket. He again got candy, two pieces. No sir, not good enough I said laughing. I told him get as much as you want. He would get as much as his little crippled hand would grip for at least 7 times and giving out belly laughs each time the candy hit his bucket. The brother was laughing, the mother was crying, and I am encouraging him to take more and fighting back tears. The mother told him to tell me thank you. I shook both of their little hands and told them if they did not come back and see me next year I would hunt them up and thump their little heads. The mother rolled him onto the lift, raised and secured him in the van, and turned to me with an enlightened look that comes only from a truly blessed soul. Through her tears and smiles she managed to tell me that was the only time the little boy had actually ever gotten his own candy, the rest of the time it was put in his bucket at the door. She gave me a hug and the boys waved like flags on a windy as the van disappeared. Man, I could only stand there, wanting to laugh, wanting to cry, not sure what to do, but knowing that if that little man received a tenth of the blessings I had just received he was one blessed little dude. Every year following I looked for that little blonde headed boy, kids would come and go but I was on high-alert, full radar mode for my little buddy in the chair. I even had his own special bucket. I went to the store and did a santa claus shopping spree for those two little guys. Every year at the bottom of the steps watching that little crippled hand go to work and a beaming smile that could be seen for a mile and then watching him clap and open gifts was worth more than any efforts of the obstacles of those steps. I am reminded of the old truckers song by Red Sovine about a little crippled boy called “Teddy Bear” (watching it on Youtube is a requirement of this blog) where at the end he says: “If I never see happiness again, I saw it that day in the face of that little man.”