Sitting Backwards Holding Hands

Kelly Benson was my best friend in kindergarten. Mostly because we rode the same bus to school together. Those rides consisted of us opening windows and watching air hands catch the breeze. Until, finally, we were told to, "Get your hand inside." So we did. And went back to holding hands while we sat backwards in our seat.

We never talked to each other in school. Miss Chartier would have nothing of that. Thirty years of teaching and she knew it all. She had seen us before and we were nothing special. So we just caught each other's eyes when we could and held how special we were inside. At recess we would sneak into a window well and show each other our genitals.

Kelly often wet herself while at school. Miss Chartier would then dress her in a dress from a life-sized doll's wardrobe we had in the room. It actually would lead to her demise. But how were we to know.

Kelly and I had filled a box with dolls and we were going to go play house outside for recess. This was fine for awhile but I got bored and went to find some sticks. Kelly took her box of dolls with her to the top of the slide. A slide that was surely one hundred stories high. It was made out of steel and the trick, on sunny days, was to slide down as fast as you could, trying to keep an inch of air between you and the actual slide, as not to get burned. Kelly reached the peak and decided to let her dolls go down first. She had tugged the box behind her on the ascent. She needed to swing the box around, over her head, so the dolls could go first. As she was just getting the box over the railing one of the dolls slipped from the box and fell. Kelly leaned over to try and catch the doll. The momentum of her reach caused her to become unsteady and her feet lifted off of the step. Her doll dress snagged on a bolt and held her for a moment but the yellow, laced taffeta was not strong enough to sustain her in place. I saw the blur of yellow fall and fall. And then heard the pop. And it was just like that. Pop. A noise that held pain.

Kelly was never the same. Her eyes had lost their presence. She often sat, without talking, and simply rocked back and forth.

It was the first time I experienced loss. It still feels the same. And each time I rediscover it all I want is to be able to sit backwards holding hands.