“I love snakes,” my 7-year-old neighbor said to me. “Sometimes I catch them and kiss them and I don’t even wash my lips.”
Her name is Joy. She knocks on my door often and is usually accompanied by her friend, 10-year-old Halle. They are bug-loving, snake-catching, grasshopper-trapping girls. With their roughened fingernails lined with dirt and hair askew, they stand barefoot with me in my garden. It’s mid-June and the greenery is heavy and thickening, climbing up trellises, bristling with pollinators, and spreading over the dark crumbly compost that clings between your toes.
“Can we pick some peas?” Halle asked.
The 5-foot-tall pole peas are a knitted drapery of interwoven vines growing nonstop through wire fencing. The pods are starting to swell.
“Let’s see if we can find some ripe ones,” I said.
They excitedly help me hunt through the numberless hanging pods until we find plenty to pick. Halle and Joy fill their mouths with sweet peas and throw the hulls in a standing bucket. Next, they follow me to the raised strawberry patch where we pull a few weeds and find a few snails which they throw over the fence into the vacant lot. They look meticulously under leaves for plump red berries.
“This is the best garden I’ve ever seen,” Halle said as she pulls off a green strawberry stem and pops the berry in her mouth.
“You know,” I said, “we’ve been working pretty hard out here. I think it’s time for a popsicle break. What do you two think?”
They quickly agree and the three of us sit on the lawn under the shade of a large locust tree, eat our cold treat, and talk about how hard it is to catch a bee in a plastic sandwich bag without getting stung.
The summer brought them to my door regularly for garden expeditions and freezer sweets. The fall brought them standing on my porch holding tall, cumbersome rakes ready to sweep my lawn clean of fallen leaves. The winter brought them with cold, bare hands, wearing unzipped coats anxious to share with me their Christmas wish list.
I loved seeing their faces when I opened the door.
The holidays passed, January 2021 arrived along with Kevin’s cancer diagnosis and untold days in the hospital. Word spread among the neighbors and soon even Halle and Joy were told.
That’s when the chalk drawings appeared.
On a day filled with somber news, I came home early from the hospital when the sun was still in the sky. The snow had melted and I noticed in its place, on my porch steps, were colorful works of art.
Illustrated on one step were two people holding hands with the following caption:
“hi. I kone your husband is in the hospitl so I dro a pikchr for you. From Joy.”
Drawn on another step was a woman standing in a flower garden with the following caption:
“You werk hard on your garden, work hard on yor husbind. I hope he gets beder. From Halle.”
The pictures didn’t come wrapped in gold paper and they would never be a conversation piece at the university art gallery; nonetheless, I hoped it would never rain.
Halle and Joy knocked on my door later that day. We stood outside, admired their artistry, and they eagerly talked about their drawings using animated gestures.
Joy explained that the two people holding hands were me and Kevin going for a walk. We didn’t have heads, she said shrugging her shoulders, because “I didn’t have room.”
Halle explained that her picture was of me working in my garden. I didn’t have feet she said, because “the step wasn’t big enough.”
The missing feet and heads were pointed out to me with no embarrassment or apologies. It was just a fact, like the sky is blue. Never did they consider erasing their work, or hiding it, or starting over because it wasn’t perfect. They were delighted to share their efforts, no matter the appearance, to cheer my dreary day.
I wish I had a little more Joy and Halle in me and a little less fear and excuse making. I regretfully recall turning away chances to share my own “chalk drawing” with bandaged, hurting friends using rationalizations like:
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I’ll be a bother.”
“They’ll think I’m dumb.”
“My idea is stupid.”
“They’re probably not home.”
“I don’t have time.”
“I’ll go tomorrow.”
Over the past year, during Kevin’s battle with cancer, I’ve been the recipient of countless kindnesses that strengthened my stride when I felt faint and lifted my spirit when I felt heavy-hearted. The charity came in a variety of forms, from a pan of homemade fudge, to a message written on a construction-paper heart, to a shoulder to cry on. I am grateful for every remembrance.
I want to do better. I want to show up, even if it’s in the form of a stumbling text, overdone cookies, or simply letting someone go in line in front of me at the store. I’ve learned my offering doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, I’ve learned perfection often comes without heads and feet.
