Summer Friend

Last night I sat on my front step with a rum and coke in hand, soaking up the cool breeze and just listening to the world around me for a bit. Within a few minutes of sitting there, I could hear the woman from about 5 houses down walking up the sidewalk with the little guy from next door who's only about 6 or 7. She said "see you tomorrow" and he replied "goodbye" and she waited for him to get safely in the house before making her way back home.

This little guy is always down at her house playing with her little boy. Almost every day when I come home from work and drive by their house, they're on the front lawn playing with toys or on their bikes and he waves as I go by. I usually see him Saturdays and Sundays beating a path down the sidewalk to go visit, or returning home at about supper time. The family he belongs to are affectionately called my "crazy neighbours" who don't do anything with the kids themselves. They just hole up in their house, come out to smoke, and that's about it. You never see them taking the kids for walks or going to the park with them, so it's nice to see this little guy finding someone to socialize with and that he's got a summer friend.

It makes me think back to when I was just a kid. We lived in Alberta and would go stay with my grandparents in Maple Creek for a bit of the summer. One summer at the swimming pool, I met a girl about my age named Cindy. We hit it off instantly and hung out quite a bit while I was there, as she also happened to live just down the alley from my grandparents. When I had to go back to Alberta, I was sad to have to say goodbye to my new friend, but excited for the year to go by so I could see her the next summer.

When the next summer rolled around and I returned to my grandparents, I was eager to go down to Cindy's house and see her. But for whatever reason, my grandparents would tell me I'd best not go and that she probably wasn't there. I'd go out into the back yard and play, hoping to see her ride down the back alley on her bike or just catch a glimpse of her just so I could wave or something just to let her know I was back. After a couple of days of not being allowed to go to her house, I asked if I could phone her. That's when the truth came to light. Sometime between then and the previous summer, she had committed suicide. It was a lot to get my head around at such a young age, and I felt lost knowing I'd never see her again.

To this day when I see kids at the park playing or just hanging out in the summer, I think of Cindy and wonder what could have been so horrible in her life at such a young age that she would take her own life. I still don't know why, and that'll always be something I'll likely never know the answer to. I'll just always remember her as that happy, smiley little girl she was that one summer when.

Tia