I was in fifth grade when I first knew a kid who was dying.
Howie Katz was my classmate at Hazeldell Elementary School in Cleveland, and he’d written a song: “My Heart Is Like a Frisky Lamb.”
The last line, with a stunning high note, praised “great wonders to be SEEN.” It sounded like “What a Fool BELIEVES,” decades later.
But by then Howie Katz, a handsome child with dark curly hair, was long dead.
After we’d performed his song in choir, we learned he had leukemia.
Youngsters rarely died in my world. There were prom night wrecks, or musicians who went to rock ’n’ roll heaven at 27. We knew about Anne Frank, waiting for death yet believing that people are “really good at heart.”
But now I see, in my own city, parents disrupting government meetings to protest against masks. They roar against vaccinations.
Do they want their children to die?
Howie Katz’s parents would have been horrified. So am I.
I wonder: How many deaths will it take till they know that too many children have died?
Great essay, Emily!
Do today’s parents know what being a parent means? Apparently thousands or million don’t have a clue. Like several so-called leaders.
Now I am stuck by the realization that I can’t remember when I first knew a child who died. I guess quite honestly that I didn’t know many other children. We lived downtown, and there weren’t a lot of children living nearby. Dads worked. Moms stayed home, unless they drove Dad to work so they could use the car that day. There were no “Meet-up” groups and no social media to find Mom’s Groups for setting up “Play Dates”. I only remember when I first knew my best friend’s father had gone “crazy” and had to be “committed”. And that my second best friend’s father drank too much beer and sometimes I couldn’t go to his house to play because his Dad was too drunk. And that my third best friends father who slept with his german officer’s gun under his pillow also had to be taken away and “committed”. Looking back, my own Dad was very special, he didn’t get ugly-drunk and he never went so crazy they had to take him away to be “committed”. All my friends liked him. My Dad did however take time off work when my mother couldn’t bear to do the nasty job of dragging a crying and screaming and kicking kid six city blocks downtown to the public health nurse at City Hall when it was time to get a vaccination. I tried to run, or fight, or bargain, and plead for my life all the way, but nothing made my father waver from what had to be done. Thanks Dad.
David–Thank you for this. I was lucky enough to have lovable and devoted parents who took the kids to city hall to get our polio vaccines on sugar cubes. No one fussed, and it seemed like a bit of a holiday. I’m glad we’ve been around long enough to reminisce.