What Jimmy Missed

Jimmy, who lived six doors down from me on Pike Street, died when he was seven years old. He rode past my house once on a red Schwinn bike with his little brother trailing behind. When my Grandma Dorothy saw Jimmy, she whispered, I thought he was sick. He looked puffy to me — like a pasty, white marshmallow. I ran out to the sidewalk to greet both boys. The younger of the two, John, was in my kindergarten class at school. I recently moved back to reside with my grandparents, Jack and Doro-thy Foster, in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Living in Illinois with my mom and stepdad wasn’t working out for me, so I started at Mills School mid-year. I was thrilled at the thought of having some neighborhood kids to play with.

Jimmy stopped and planted his feet on either side of his bike while John took off, spinning the pedals so hard his training wheels almost came off the ground. I think we played together that day and I hope Jimmy remembered having fun. I hope he carried that memory with him wherever he landed. I hope I shouted, “We can play again tomorrow.”

I never saw Jimmy again, but I learned two things from a boy I only saw once. I learned a word that haunted me most of my childhood; Leukemia. I didn’t know what it meant, except Jimmy stopped coming out to play. I also learned that a little kid, almost the same age as me, could die and miss out on life.

About three years after his death, I remember going to visit Grandma Luddy, my Grandpa Jack’s mother, who lived across the street from the cemetery where Jimmy was buried. I walked around the rows of stones trying to read the inscriptions. And then, I happened upon Jimmy’s grave. He was immortalized in a black and white photo, dressed in a white shirt with suspenders. He sported a crew cut and a closed mouth smile. Beneath the photo was the inscription:

James Donald Ball

Son of Margaret and Steve

1949-1956

Seeing his picture on that block of granite took my breath away. I turned and ran back across the street to Grandma Luddy’s as fast as I could.

Around the Pike Street neighborhood, I still played with the surviving brother, John. He would often come out and mingle with the all us kids as we charged around the block on foot or bicycle. On Sunday mornings, he walked with his mom, dad and sister past our house towards town to attend church. I wonder if he thought about Jimmy? I wonder if he missed him? I am still haunted by Jimmy’s memory and the sadness I feel when I think about what he missed.

What Jimmy Missed

1956-1961

• Playing “Capture the Flag” with the rest of the neighborhood kids. Looking into the doll house where I kept my collection of praying mantises

• Holding grasshoppers while they spit brown tobacco juice in our cupped hands and not getting grossed out.

• Joining kids from all over town at the Community Rec Center right across the street from our houses.

• Jumping on the trampoline or making crafts in the room off of the side stairs with Ms. Frances Wooden, my first in-person encounter with a woman of color.

• Buying pretzel rods for a penny from a tall glass jar.

Back in 1962, my grandparents built the first four-level home in the Pleasant Meadows subdivision. The white split-level stood at the front edge of an immense cornfield on a little rise. It had a sunken family room and a small apartment attached to the side of the house. This is where Great Grandma Luddy would live and die a few months after she moved in with us.

I went to a new school and made new friends. My Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Tom moved into Grandma Luddy’s old house so I still visited the cemetery where Jimmy was buried. I always across the street to check on Jimmy’s grave. It made me think about what he was missing.

What Jimmy Missed

1962-1964

• Crouching under a desk at school while practicing an air raid drill.

• Securing a place in the basement and designating it as a bomb shelter stocked with canned foods and boxes of mac and cheese and candy.

• Wondering how many pigs lived in that Bay in Cuba and why America and Russia were fighting about it.

• Watching John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth three times in four hours and fifty-five minutes, on a little black and white television set.

• Longing to grow up and be an astronaut so you could ride a spaceship to the moon.

• Hearing an announcement over the PA while in school on November 22,1963 that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas.

• Staying glued to the same Admiral TV set in the family room for three days as every-one watched the events of the tragedy unfold.

In the summer before seventh grade, my grandparents made the decision to move back to our house on Pike Street. When I saw John, he hadn’t changed much. Seeing him again reminded me of Jimmy’s picture. If Jimmy was alive, he would have been starting his junior year in high school. There were so many things he was going to miss.

What Jimmy Missed

1965-1970 and beyond

• Picking tassels off corn for Dekalb as a teenage rite of passage in Indiana.

• Taking Driver’s Ed with Coach Knecht joking the whole time you are trying to drive.

• “Bombing” around the “Dog” and the “Diner” on Friday and Saturday nights to see and be seen.

• Graduating from Crawfordsville High School in 1967 then heading to Colorado to drive a snow plow or work on the ski lift for the sake of getting a “Rocky Mountain High.”

• Missing a chance of dying in a war not many people understood, few people wanted and nobody won.

• Suffering with the effects of Agent Orange or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder well into his adulthood; maybe the rest of his life.

• Hippies, Flower Power, psychedelic mushrooms, tripping on acid, Beatle Mania and a purple haze

• Marriage, children and growing old

One day, not long ago, I took a walk up Grant Avenue. I passed Grandma Luddy’s old house with its new paint job and flower garden. I crossed the street and stopped at my grandparent’s headstones. I kept walking up around the gravel drive in the middle of the cemetery. When I almost reached the end, a sense of déjà vu came over me. I turned to see the photo of a little boy with a closed mouth smile. It was Jimmy’s grave and I almost missed it.

This article in its entirety appeared in the online journal, https://www.monthstoyears.org Summer 2022 edition. Names have been changed but the memories are real.

Gwynn Wills is a former speech therapist, certified Amherst Writers and Artists workshop Affiliate and Leader and founder of The Calliope Writers Group. After growing up in Crawfordsville, her and her husband returned several years ago.