Transparent Christian Magazine

The pale pink scars disappeared under the hem of his shorts. What could cause such scars, I wondered as I watched him walk away. The sun was reflecting off his straight, platinum blond hair, as I called after him, “Jimmy, it was nice to meet you!”. He turned and smiled at me…the purest and most innocent of smiles “you too, lady”. I closed my mailbox and walked back to my house, still smiling, but puzzled by the young boy’s curious question. The neighbors had received another child… how many did they have now? Eight? Thirteen? They come and go, sometimes too fast for me to even remember their faces, much less their names…but Jimmy, I will never forget.

Jimmy was a six year old foster child, a ward of the state of TN. His father had beaten his mother to death and now served time in the state pen. He had no other known family and unless someone adopted him, he would be bounced from foster home to foster home until he reached the age of eighteen. His big green eyes and platinum hair only served to accentuate his beauty. He was always positive, always smiling and always repeating T.V. commercials, verbatim. He would sit quietly, practically unnoticed until someone in the room would say something that would remind him of a commercial… then his little voice would boom to life, quoting a Heinz ketchup, Crazy glue, or Rambo action figure commercial. The first time I experienced this, I laughed, it was the cutest thing. We’d deliberately say things that might catch his attention and afford him the chance to “quote” a commercial. As you might have guessed, Jimmy wasn’t a normal six year old. Jimmy helped my personal growth that summer in ways he will never know.

Everyday, I would watch Jimmy walk down to check the mail, and then return into the house. I never saw him playing outside with the other kids. When I’d go over to visit with the Beans, Jimmy would always be parked in front of the T.V. Sometimes he’d be lying on his belly, with a coloring book or some action figures and he’d seemingly be ignoring the world around him. One evening, after dinner, I walked over and lay on the floor next to him and asked if I could color a page. He looked at me with those big green eyes and said “why?” “It looks like fun and I wanna see what Garfield would look like if he were purple.”, I said as I picked up the crayon. He giggled and then rested his cheek in the palm of his hand to watch me color Garfield purple

“That’s my favorite color”, he said as he watched me, but he didn’t say another word until I was done. I colored that page with all kinds of crazy colors… purple cat, green lasagna, red Odie, blue trees, pink sky… you know the usual stuff. When I was done, Jimmy turned the page and handed a yellow crayon to me, “do this one”, he said. “Well, where does the yellow go?” I asked… “That man’s hair, his hair can be yellow like mine”… Jimmy and I colored several pages that way… we picked a color and an object in the picture to become a “different” color than it would be in the real world. Mr. Bean’s voice broke the bubble that Jimmy and I had been in for the last hour, “Go brush your teeth, Jimmy, it’s time for bed.” I watched him walk away and wondered about the scars again.

I sat in the kitchen with the Bean’s, sippin’ coffee and talkin’ about the joys of parenthood. I was newly married and had no children of my own. My husband was away on his “one weekend a month” thing for the army national guard, so I had every reason to sit up all night and talk to my neighbors. I asked about Jimmy’s scars and his immediate future. The scars were from having been whipped with a wire coat hanger when he was a toddler. Apparently, he had bounced a ball and knocked his father’s bottle of Jack off the table, causing it to shatter on the floor… no need to tell you how that night played out. He suffered through five years of drunken, angry outbursts and had learned to focus on the T.V. and retreat into his own little lonely world just to make it to the next day. This was the reason that he didn’t want to play with the other kids, he was afraid…afraid to have fun, afraid to be a child, afraid to bounce a ball… it was much better to stay within the safe confines of the rug in front of the T.V. and not risk angering anyone.

The Bean’s many years of foster parenting and made them almost indifferent to each of “their” children’s backgrounds. They had learned not to become attached and to follow the state’s “rules”, no matter where they lead. All I could think about was Jimmy and how he could become an active kid again…to step outside of his fear and live… to sit in the grass watch the ants build their little city… to chase the dog and feel the sun and the breeze on his face… to bounce a ball…

I spent every spare moment I had, that summer, at the Bean’s house, coaxing Jimmy further and further away from the rug in front of the T.V… I tried to engage Jimmy, in all kinds of things, to help him grow away from his fears… but our time together was cut short. Tennessee DCS, called to notify the Bean’s that a new foster home had been established in Knoxville and Jimmy was the perfect candidate to place into the new home…he would be picked up the next morning.

My heart was breaking, standing in the Bean’s driveway, hugging Jimmy goodbye… I remembered the day I’d met him at the mail box… We introduced ourselves and Jimmy asked me a strange question. It didn’t dawn on me, what that question could’ve possibly meant, until I had to say goodbye. I knelt in front of Jimmy, with the gift I had rushed out to pick up earlier that morning… I looked into his big, frightened, green eyes and I said “Yes, Jimmy, most definitely, if you were a ball, I’d bounce you!” He smiled and hugged me so tight around the neck that I thought I might pass out. He got into the social worker’s van without opening the gift I’d given him. I wanted to see his face when he pulled away the wrapping paper and found a purple soccer ball… his favorite color.

When I think of Jimmy now, I know he saw himself in that ball. He saw a person who wanted to be loved, and wanted to return love. The act of bouncing that ball would be living and loving to the fullest. Don’t be afraid to bounce the ball, because if you were a ball, I’d bounce you…

Sheila Rippy ~ 06-01-08