You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Yard Sale.
In some ways this yard sale is so simplistic. In other ways it’s as complex as Rubex Cube.
My job takes me to every nuance of life.
I have met Governors and I have met criminals.
The journey is always interesting, each different, but somehow revealing.
Tonight’s story is revealing to me in ways that a trip to the Governor’s mansion never could be.
Tonight’s story to me is simple, yet so complex.
It’s complex because it’s about a little boy struggling with cancer when he should be playing GI Joes.
Tonight’s story is simple because I don’t need a press release or a second source to confirm information. I will not need to call the attorney to see if we will get sued.
Tonight’s story is simple because I simply have to press record and shoot the people before me.
Tonight’s story is complex because it questions the universe. Tonight’s story is the enigmatic leap of faith illustrating WHY?
WHAT IS THE UNIVERSAL MEANING GOD?
This evening I am squatting beside a 4-year-old boy in a wheel chair.
He has a wisp of hair on his head. Through his newly grown hair I can see a long, jagged scar on his skull.
The boy’s face is cute, in a four-year old puppy kind of way.
But there is also a distant feeling about the boy. His eyes follow me and he smiles when I ask a question, but there is a buffer, a haze a realization that this child has a long physical and mental challenge ahead.
“What color bike do you want?” I ask the little boy.
I stare at the tube that comes out of his clothing and goes up his nose.
I wonder how that feels, where it goes, what the tube does.
I could ask, but for this story I don’t need to know.
This story is simple. Boy fighting rare, aggressive form of brain cancer needs money for medical bills.
What the tube does, where it goes, why its necessary? That’s complex.
I stare at his face. He says something that starts with the letter B. I think it is the word blue.
From behind me, I hear his mom say; “A blue bike.”
I smile and repeat that. “You want a blue bike?”
Simple: The child’s face lights up in a smile.
He squirms in his chair, his arms flailing.
“He’s showing off for you,” his mother says proudly.
The little boy before me is obviously cognizant of me and my questions. Though he is in a wheel chair and cannot stand he is aware. Though he has a tube running downing his throat and a zipper scar marking where doctors cut out a tennis ball sized tumor, he is alert.
This story is simple as a child’s smile. This story is complex as why does God make children sick.
I struggle to stand up feeling the ache in my knees. Four knee surgeries and too much physical abuse will do that to an old man.
That’s simple. I’m old. My knees hurt. I’ve earned these aches and pains over time.
Why was I given this chance, I wonder. That’s complex.
As I stand over the 4-year-old, fastened to his chair, for how long who knows, I think about how I can stand and walk and feel pain in my knees earned over a lifetime of stupid.
This story is simple. The family has a million dollars in medical bills. They have insurance, but they also have bills and needs, like a blue therapeutic bike that costs $4,000. So they are having a garage sale. Simple! They are selling copies of Harry Potter in paper back. They are selling an old football.
The grandfather brings a child’s violin. “A man heard we were having a yard sale and he donated that to us,” he says beaming with pride.
“How much do you think that is worth,” I ask.
“Maybe $120,” he says proudly.
I smile.
Simply put? That’s great. A practically new child’s violin donated to his cause that might raise $120 dollars.
Simple: The goodness in a stranger’s heart to help a little boy he doesn’t know.
Complex? What can $120 dollars do in the over all scheme of a million dollars worth of bills? How do you accumulate a million dollars worth of hospital bills? It’s absurd.
The grand dad is so excited to show me the items he will sell. He shows me an old metallic machine that he tells me was once used in the printing industry to wrap newspapers.
“Someone could put that in their living rooms,” he says smiling.
I look at the hunk of metal that’s as outdated as White Out.
It is clunky and sharp and there is a compressor that turns electricity into some form of activity that is no longer necessary in today’s digital age.
Nobody will buy that, I think. Unless the Smithsonian Institute is in the market for a metallic paper bundler.
This story is simple. A family’s unconditional love and hope that their baby will get out of the wheel chair. This family has signed the child up for pre-school in the fall. This family believes that the surgeries are over, the chemo done with, the recovery process in full swing.
This story is complex. The odds of the child beating this very rare form of cancer are 50/50 according to web sites I will later visit.
“The tumor was as big as a tennis ball,” grandpa will tell me. “They had to remove 1/3 of his brain and he was on life support and experimental drugs for a while,” he will add.
This story is simple. I watch the mother and aunt push the little boy across the grass in his wheel chair. He is laughing. “Tag you’re it!,” he says while his aunt runs from him gleefully.
This story is complex. I wonder why God makes children sick. Does he not care? Does he care too much? Is he in the ether all around us watching, testing, judging? Or did he create us ions ago, push us into the void with self-determination and fate and move on to the next thing on his Celestial Honey Do list?
Why do four-year olds get rare forms of cancer? Why will a four-year old struggle to get out of a wheel chair and formulate words without great sacrifice and effort? That should be simple. Yet for this little boy, it is will prove to be extremely complex.
Life is complex. Yes it is.
But on this picture perfect 72 degree afternoon, life is mostly simple.
A family sets up for a yard sale. There is love all around me and the contagious laughter of a four-year old boy fills the yard.
If I don’t look at the child in the wheel chair with the scar and the tube, I wouldn’t think anything different.
I listen to birds chirping and the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves.
When I look at the setting sun I think how simple this moment is.
As I wave goodbye to the family and watch as they push the baby boy up the wheel chair ramp to the simple home with the boxes on the front lawn, I realize just how complex life can be.
Life’s Crazy™