30 Seconds

It’s funny how I think about stuff and remember people from my past. While working around the house late this afternoon I thought about a kid I knew in grade school. Maybe I was thinking about the past because the kids are away at school and Bek is working on a theater project and the house is unusually still.

His name was John. He went by “JP”. For some people initials don’t work. My brother Chris is a “CJ”. I think he tried it once but it was just trying too hard. John, on the other hand, was JP.

I remember him as a kid. He was bigger than me, and really most of us. He had wavy sandy brown hair and blue eyes that saw to your soul, making any space between you and him closer. He wore sweaters. Brown ones. Sometimes stripes. And he was friendly.

I remember the end of one school year when JP was “held back.” He was sad. He was told the teachers needed him to “stay to help put the toys away.” He repeated that often but I could hear the embarrassment in his voice. JP was retarded. Yeah, that’s the word they used back then for people that are mentally challenged.

By today’s standards, JP was mildly retarded. Slow. With the resources schools have now, he would be main-streamed and integrated, ultimately graduating with his high school class.

But those were different times. JP was held back. No specialists worked with him. He was just the obviously much bigger kid that “flunked.” He eventually disappeared from school.

Maybe I remembered JP because I’ve been thinking about my kids and the path from there-to-here. My mother used to say, “There but by the grace of God go you!” when we’d see a mentally or physically challenged person. For the longest time I honestly thought she was hexing me! I did the same thing with my kids but in a more scientific (less “invoking”) statement; that is, “there is 30 seconds separating you from someone that is mentally challenged.” Or when they got older, I could just give them “the look” and say, “30 seconds!” My point, as I explained it, is that 30 seconds of oxygen deprivation at birth can be the difference between Gabby or Joe and JP. Of course that’s a simplification but it made my point.

After graduating from college I ran into JP at the Association for Retarded Citizens. They were doing some large parts sorting projects for the company I worked for. JP, being a big healthy guy, helped me unload cardboard boxes filled with small parts.

He recognized me immediately. He said, “I know you… Wait… VINCE!” He looked the same. Sandy brown hair. Piercing blue eyes. But he had changed his trademark sweater for a striped polo.

“How’s your sister… Laura?” He asked. His question surprised me and made me kind of sad. Why did JP have to be there? He seemed so much more capable than the rest of the ARC clients.

I looked forward to seeing and talking to JP when I made a pickup or delivery and I appreciated his help. And every time he saw me he asked about my sister Laura. “She was always so nice to me, “ he said. “I remember talking to her all the time in school. Tell her I said hi!”

I remember during one delivery JP asked if I had told my sister that he had said hello. I had forgotten but told him that I had. “Laura said to ask you if you remember how you used to kick the red bouncy ball over the fence at school and how the teachers used to get so mad!” JP laughed. “She remembered that?” he asked with a laugh. In fact, I made it up. It was the one thing I remembered from grade school. We all kicked balls over the fence and it drove the teachers crazy chasing them across the street into neighboring yards.

JP would ask about Laura every time I saw him. I told him about her life and kids as we loaded or unloaded the truck. And every time before I drove away he would say, “Tell Laura I say hi!” I got to know JP and looked forward to seeing him and appreciated his help. I never saw him as challenged and treated him like one of the guys.

One day while unloading the heavy cartons, I noticed that there were several empties at the front of the truck. (We typically dropped off empties so ARC would have extra boxes for sorting.) I picked up an empty box pretending it was one of the previous heavy ones and tossed it to JP. He caught it and, expecting a fully loaded box, smacked himself in the face with it.

He got a puffy lip.

“SHIT JP!” I said, “Sorry, I didn’t think you would….”

“Vince… I thought you were my friend,” he said.

There have been a few times in my life that I’ve hated myself. That’s one. What I had done was the moral equivalent of stomping on a baby bird.

I apologized over and over again. Certain things can’t be undone. All I could do was put my arm around him and tell him that I was an ass and would never be mean again.

JP met me at the door for the next delivery. “You gonna throw boxes at my head again Vince?” he said with a sarcastic grin. I apologized and told him that I wouldn’t feel right until he threw a box at me! We laughed about that.

I ran a Google search on JP tonight. John Peter “JP” Webb died in 2014 at the age of 52. “John Peter.” I never thought to ask his middle name.

Maybe it’s some kind of merciful mechanism preprogrammed into the human genome that allows for the physically and mentally challenged to depart often before their caregivers. Maybe God just says “enough is enough.” At any rate, I hope that JP and those that have endured challenges beyond their control become whole and find peace, life, love, and happiness in another life.

JP. Somebody’s Gabby. Somebody’s Joe. Somebody’s CJ. Separated by thirty seconds.

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