Recently, my grandson Colton and I had another soccer and hide-and-seek expedition in our basement playground. These can last more than an hour. Smiles. Laughter. Silly-rules soccer and goofy hide-and-seek games have a revered place in our pantheon of fun.
Colton, 8, had a difficult after-school schedule: practice for the play Annie one day, speech therapy another day and lacrosse on three days. That day was a lacrosse day, and we had to make the most of our time. Colton’s dinner would be served at 4:45 p.m., not the usual 5:45. He had to eat, get dressed, go to the bathroom and be in his father’s car by 5:30.
At 4:30, Nana opened the basement door and shouted, “Lacrosse canceled!”
“Yaaaaaay!” proclaimed Colton. “Thank you, God! Thank you, God! You are my lifesaver! Yaaaaaay!”
We celebrated. And then, knowing we were blessed with an additional half hour of basement-playground time, Colton asked a most wonderful question. “Can we talk for a while, Papi?”
Music to Papi’s ears and knees.
So, we talked. Colton is hooked on tales about my growing up in Brooklyn, New York.
“Can you tell me about Mrs. Dooley again?”
“Yes. Well, I was about your age. We played stickball on our block. Maybe eight to 10 of us. We had great stickball games. Our street was called an avenue because it was wide and you had plenty of space to play, even with cars parked on both sides. We played with a pink rubber ball and sometimes the ball landed on people’s lawns. No big deal. Except for when it landed on . . .”
I pointed at Colton.
“Mrs. Dooley’s lawn.”
“Yeah. That was a problem. A lot of times she would sit on her stoop waiting for the ball to land on her lawn. She would yell, ‘Go play in front of your own house!’ She was a real pain in the . . .”
I pointed at Colton.
“Butt.”
“Yeah. Well, most of us were polite to Mrs. Dooley. One of us would race over to her lawn, tiptoe onto it and get the ball. Once and a while one of us would say, ‘Sorry, Mrs. Dooley.’ But I never said that. Know why?”
“You were mad.”
“Yeah. I used to give her a dirty look every time.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. But it got worse than that. One day the ball landed — you’re not gonna believe this — on her dumb stoop. Guess who was sitting in her beach chair?”
“Mrs. Dooley.”
“Yeah. She stood up, picked up the ball and sat down with it. We didn’t know what to do. I waited for a couple of cars to pass and then I ran across the street. I walked right on her stupid lawn and stood there.
“‘Get off the lawn!’ she yelled.
“‘Give us the ball!’ I shouted back.
“‘Get off the lawn or I’m calling the cops.’
“I got off the lawn. No sense dealing with Dooley and the cops. ‘You’re stealing our ball. It cost a quarter.’
“‘I’m keeping the ball!’
“‘I’m telling my Mom. She bought the ball. She’ll be better than the cops.’
“I turned around, crossed the street and walked towards my house. When I was almost there, a pink rubber ball bounced right in front of me. I grabbed it. I turned around and looked at Mrs. Dooley. She sat in her chair. I stared at her for a while. She did the same thing back at me. Now, this is the strangest thing. I felt bad for her.”
I glanced at Colton. “Why did I feel bad for her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah. Me either. Know what I did next?”
“No.”
“I waved to her. It was a slow, thank-you kind of wave. A kind wave. Know what she did?”
“No.”
“She waved back with a slow, thank-you kind of wave.”
Long pause. Colton has kind eyes.
“Want to hear another one?”
“Yes.”
“Five years after I graduated from college, Nana and I bought a house on the block I had played stickball on as a boy, and guess who was still sitting on her stoop?”
“Mrs. Dooley.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I forgave her.”
“Why?”
“God wants us to forgive people. That’s why I did it.”
“But why?”
Pause.
“Well, this might be hard to understand, but when you forgive somebody, like at school or something, you feel happy. I think that’s because you get closer to God when you forgive somebody.”
“Why did you start being friendly to Mrs. Dooley?”
“Well, Mrs. Dooley deserves the credit. She was friendly to me. When I passed her house, she would shout from the other side of the street, ‘Hi, Edmund!’
“She smiled. So did I. A smile is a powerful way to make up with friends and your Mom and Dad and everybody. But anyway, I would say, ‘Hello, Mrs. Dooley!’
“A few times I went on her stoop, and we talked. She told me her husband had died. I knew they didn’t have children, so I felt bad for her. I tried to cheer her up every time we talked. Sometimes she laughed. I told her Nana and I had a little girl and we called her Kathy and she was 4 years old. Another time I said, ‘I apologize for the times I was rude to you.’
“‘You weren’t rude.’
“‘Thank you, Mrs. Dooley’
“She smiled. ‘Edmund, you were my favorite.’ She gave me a hug. When it was time to go, I walked down her steps and stopped at the sidewalk. I turned, smiled and gave her that same slow-wave of kindness I had 15 years before.”
“Wow.”
“You know what Mrs. Dooley did?”
“No.”
“A slow-wave of kindness.”
I gazed into Colton’s sensitive, dark eyes.
Ed Stubbing is a child of God, sinner, husband and son, father and grandfather, brother, uncle, friend, co-writer and dreamer, and is possibly quixotic. He lives and writes in Stony Point, New York.