Ray of Sunlight (10 page)

Suffice it to say it was really loud.

CJ and I sat with Pete and some of the people from his youth group.

“If those two girls are there, I’m going to hang myself.” CJ looked bedraggled.

“I bet you mean Marissa and Janey,” Pete jumped in. “The girls working the face-painting booth with you.”

“Yes. You have to save me,” CJ pleaded.

“Did you tell them you were gay?” Pete apparently thought like I had. “That should take care of it, right?”

“I did, but I think they thought I was kidding.”

“Well, you can just get someone to kiss you in front of them. That might slow them down a little.” For some reason, Pete looked at me when he said that.

I threw my hands up. “Don’t look at me, man.”

I thought I heard Pete say “Chicken” as he walked over to the girls in question. I never did find out what he said to them, but they more or less left CJ alone after that, though now they giggled every time they passed us. I was going to have to ask Pete what he told them.

B
Y
THE
end of dinner, the kids were winding down a little, and we enlisted the aid of the families and volunteers to help them back up to their rooms. Some conked out like lights as soon as their heads hit the beds. Others, I heard tell later, were so wound up they didn’t get to sleep until really late. But, the important thing was that everyone had a fantastic time, and CJ was happy.

The volunteers seemed to have a ball too. Toward the end of the afternoon, I heard the pastor make plans with Mrs. Barton to do this every year. CJ said he thought we created a monster. But it put that sparkle in his eyes when he smiled, so it was a good monster.

T
HE
CHURCH
seemed to adopt the hospital after that. There were people who came by several times a week to entertain the kids on the various wards, which was actually a really good thing. CJ hadn’t been bouncing back from his treatments like he usually did, and he just couldn’t get around to all the units to do the clown shows nearly as often anymore. He had been beating himself up over it, but when the church ladies, and some gentlemen, started taking over some of the entertainment duties, it was like a big weight was lifted off his shoulders. It had never been about him getting attention… or about him in any way, really, except that he got as much out of it as the kids. It had always been about the kids… that they have something to entertain them… keep their minds off their illnesses. As long as that need was being met, CJ didn’t care who was meeting it.

I checked in on various volunteer activities, at CJ’s request. He was glad someone else was looking after his kids, but he wanted to make sure they were treating them right.

They were.

I had to hand it to the volunteers. When they found out CJ had been incorporating therapy goals into his shows, they made the effort to find out what goals the kids had and to be trained by the PTs on how to help them use them. Some volunteers just came and helped the kids with their exercises or read books to them. But others were pretty inventive.

One lady brought clay for the kids to make pots with… and of course, actually taught them to make them. Then she planned to take the pots home and fire them in her kiln and bring them back for the kids to paint.

“I can’t make this turn into a pot,” Cissy complained, as she had trouble getting the clay to do what she wanted.

“Well, we’ll just have to have a talk with that clay, then, won’t we?” That wasn’t the lady who had brought in the clay. This woman, Ms. Barstow, had come in with several of the other volunteers and tended to concentrate her efforts on the burn ward. Some of them were like that: seemed to fit better with the kids in one ward or another, so just volunteered there. CJ had said that, given plenty of people, that was probably the best strategy—divide and conquer—but back when he was really the only entertainment, he hadn’t felt he had that luxury. He really seemed glad that the new volunteers did.

Cissy laughed at Ms. Barstow’s statement, which I was sure was the intention. “You can’t talk to clay,” she said.

“Sure you can,” Ms. Barstow assured and then proceeded to do just that. “Now you listen here clay,” she started, in a stern voice. “This lovely young lady wants you to be a pot. You need to listen to her and become a pot.”

“I don’t think it can hear you.” Cissy scowled at yet another attempt to mold the recalcitrant clay.

“Sure it can.” Ms. Barstow quickly formed an ear from a portion of the clay in front of Cissy. “See? It has an ear.”

Cissy laughed, and together they made a lopsided pot.

“See?” Ms. Barstow turned toward Cissy with a twinkle in her eye. “That pot is just as beautiful as you are.”

“It’s beautifuller,” Cissy announced without any heat. “It’s not all burned. I’m not very beautiful.”

Ms. Barstow made sure Cissy was looking at her. “Young lady, you most certainly are beautiful. It doesn’t matter what your outsides look like. Just like this pot. It has some imperfections, because we hand made it, and no one can hand make something totally perfectly. But it’s the imperfections that draw attention to it so that we can see how beautiful it is.”

“But I’m not handmade, and my mommy says I used to be perfect.” Cissy frowned. “But I’m not anymore. She still says I am, but I can tell I’m not. I’m all burned.”

“You were hand made by God, honey,” Ms. Barstow said, and I cringed a little. I hadn’t had a lot of positive conversations that started with “God.” I wanted to make sure this didn’t degenerate into something hurtful. Not that anything about a loving God should be hurtful, but… well, I didn’t know this lady all that well, and she looked like she meant well, but…. Yeah, I’d pay attention and make sure.

“God made me burned?” Cissy seemed to be upset by that thought, and I was getting ready to jump in if need be.

“No, of course not, honey.” Ms. Barstow reached up and stroked Cissy’s face, coming very near the burned part, but not actually touching it. Cissy was self-conscious and didn’t want anyone to touch that part of her face. Ms. Barstow was still talking. “God made you perfect, sweetie, and the accident made you burned.”

“Why didn’t God stop it?” Cissy asked, and it was a question I wanted the answer for also.

“Well, I don’t really know, baby,” Ms. Barstow answered. “But I think it was probably so the rest of us could practice finding the perfect in other people even when it was disguised a little.”

“Disguised?” Cissy asked. “Like a mask?”

“Sort of,” Ms. Barstow answered. “Sometimes, people get so wrapped up in what others look like on the outside that they forget they’re supposed to be looking on the inside.”

Cissy just wrinkled her forehead, so Ms. Barstow continued. “Like CJ.”

Cissy was still confused, and I was on high alert. If she was going to say CJ didn’t look past the outside….

“When you look at CJ, you see the clown makeup first, right?” she continued, and I relaxed a little. I wanted to see where she’d go with this.

Cissy laughed. “He looks funny.”

“Yes, he does, but, when you look past the makeup, you can see that ‘funny’ isn’t all he is. He’s a caring, thoughtful young man, who loves each and every one of you very much. You don’t expect that from just a clown. But CJ’s not just what his outsides show. He’s much more than that, and it’s up to us to look past the makeup and see that, right?”

Cissy smiled again, and nodded.

Ms. Barstow continued her story. “All of us are like that. We have an outside and an inside, and we owe it to each other to look past the outside, and see what’s on the inside. And if we really look hard, we can find that everyone has beauty on the inside. That’s the part that counts. Our outside changes. We have accidents, we get sick, we get old. But our insides… that’s what is important. That part stays beautiful, if we let it.”

“So, even though I’m ugly on the outside, I’m pretty on the inside?”

Ms. Barstow sighed. I’m sure that’s not exactly what she meant. “Honey, you are not ugly on the outside. It’s just that sometimes outsides hide all that beautiful gorgeousness that is on the inside.”

“I have beautiful gorgeousness?” Cissy seemed surprised.

“You most certainly do,” Ms. Barstow agreed. “Lots and lots of it.”

I decided I liked Ms. Barstow.

I
REPORTED
all of that to CJ, and he was touched. Both because the lady was trying to break through Cissy’s self-consciousness and because she had used CJ himself to try to do it.

“Cissy, like most of the kids on that ward, just doesn’t see herself as beautiful anymore. We all get so caught up in appearances, Russ. Not just what we physically look like, but labels too. People can’t see past ‘burned’ or ‘cancer’ or ‘gay’ or ‘poor.’ It’s not supposed to be like that, Russ. This lady has it right. There is so much more on the inside. None of that outside stuff should matter.”

I agreed with him. It shouldn’t matter. But I also knew, far too well, that the world didn’t really think like that.

The world really did get caught up on outside stuff, and their own judgments of that stuff. And, based on what they thought of the “outside stuff,” they branded the person themselves as “bad” or “wrong” or “damned.” I never did understand why, and it really did a lot of harm for a lot of people, but it also didn’t seem likely to change any time soon.

B
UT
,
THERE
were still a lot more volunteers.

Another lady, Mrs. Thompson, brought cuttings of plants, had the kids decorate flower pots she had brought with her, and then helped them plant the cuttings and put the pots on their windowsills.

It was such a big hit, she said she’d come back in the spring and take the kids outside so they could plant flowers in the gardens there. She had gotten permission first, so she knew she’d be able to follow through. She brought flower magazines and had the kids look at the pictures and cut out the kinds of flowers they wanted to plant as soon as it was warm enough. When Mrs. Thompson found out I drew, she had me draw the various sides of the hospital outside, and make copies for the kids, so they could paste their pictures where they wanted to plant them.

All the pictures, complete with landscaping, turned out very well, and Mrs. Thompson made colored copies and hung them all over the hospital with the heading of Coming Soon.

The kids loved it.

O
NE
OF
the church guys brought balsa wood birdhouse kits for the kids to assemble and paint. Some of the kids put their finished products outside their bedroom windows so real birds could use them. The rest were displayed around the building outside of various common area windows as well as in the gardens and in various trees.

He was careful to explain that many of the birds native to New York weren’t living there right now because it was so cold. He told them the birds were on vacation in the south where it was a lot warmer. One of the kids on the cancer ward asked if they could write letters to the birds to tell them that they had new homes as soon as they got back.

Mr. Mackey thought it was a wonderful idea, and he got the kids to do just that on one of his many trips to the hospital. He also asked them to draw what they thought the birds were doing on vacation.

The kids were very imaginative. There were all sorts of pictures with birds, or unrecognizable blobs posing as birds, engaged in all sorts of watersports. Some were sunbathing, some were riding boats or flying kites. There were birds riding Jet Skis and birds having picnics on the beach.

Some of the kids wanted to write stories to go with the picture, and Mr. Mackey encouraged all of them to do so. It was fun to watch a simple birdhouse project blossom into all sorts of academic practice, not to mention even more opportunities to work on PT goals, and most of it was child led.

Mr. Mackey was obviously getting as much fun out of the whole thing as the kids were.

A
NOTHER
MAN
taught them how to play recorders. I hadn’t known anyone even played those things anymore, but the kids loved them.

He taught them to play several Christmas songs and got them to put on a little recital of sorts for the parents the week before Christmas. Another volunteer kind of coordinated efforts and taught the younger kids to play rhythm instruments at the same recital. They all—kids, parents, and both volunteers—loved it so much, they had plans to teach them more, non-Christmas, songs and have another recital in the spring some time. I heard that other people were jumping on that bandwagon. There were people who were going to give violin lessons, drum lessons, and, on the baby grand in the main lobby, piano lessons. CJ said he couldn’t wait until the recital in the spring. I just hoped he made it that far. Even in the several months I’d known him, his health had gone downhill.

I
MADE
sure CJ went around to as many of these activities as possible. It did his heart good to see everyone get so involved with his kids, and he remarked at how loving all these people seemed to be. I had to agree. If
this
was what Christianity was—and not all that crap Allen and Mom spouted—
this
I could actually get behind. When I said as much to Pete, he suggested that I start coming to services on Sundays.

“Let’s not get carried away, now,” I said, but I wasn’t angry at the suggestion, as I would have been a few months ago. Maybe Pete had been right a while ago. Maybe I was actually growing up a little.

I asked CJ. He looked like he was thinking and then said, “Nah, why would you want to do that?” Then laughed like crazy.

R
IGHT
AFTER
Thanksgiving, CJ and I had started on the mural. We needed plenty of other help once I got it drawn on the wall, but the first step was to get it up there, and I hadn’t been sure I’d be able to do it.