Dear Beatrice

Dear Beatrice,
I no longer know where you are, or even if you are alive. I was just seven when you came to take care of me. My family had moved to Florida after doctors recommended that the climate would be therapeutic for my recovery. Suddenly, I was in a completely different world. I had a new school, neighborhood, teacher, and friends. I was lonely and I missed my old world. I was skinny and awkward, and I was always the last one to be chosen for a team. Never mind, I knew that after school you would meet me, and I would be with the best friend anyone could have. "Bea, I didn't get picked today," I'd tell you again, and again you would say, "Don't you worry, I bet they'll pick you tomorrow, and I always pick you first for my team". Somehow, that would make everything OK, and maybe, just maybe someone at school tomorrow would pick me. You gave me hope. I felt isolated and left out, but your acceptance of me just the way I was, that made a tremendous different in a very little boy. You would take me to the movies on Saturday and we would sit in the balcony. I thought that was fun, but I know now that it was not. It caused you great humiliation, and that saddens me today. There were so many places I wanted to go together, and we could not. Like the beach, and I promised we would go one day, but I knew it wasn't probably going to happen, and together, we could only see the ocean from the car. I wondered why we drank from separate water fountains marked "white" and "colored". I asked you and you only told me not to worry. I did worry, and in my young heart I knew there was something very wrong. I was always happy when your Tony came to our house, especially when he brought a watermelon. With the silver blade of his knife which appeared magically from the handle, he would cut thick slices and we would share them under the shade tree. You admonished us when you caught us trying to see who could spit the seeds the farthest, but you knew I was having fun, and you smiled when I laughed. You fed me, cared for me, and nurtured me with unconditional love. I remember the time you cut your finger badly. I ran to my mother and said, "Bea just cut her finger and she's bleeding. Her blood is just like mine! We're the same, we're just the same!" After that, you would always smile and tell me, "Honey, we're the same, we're just the same." I liked that, and I wanted to be like you. You can never know how much your presence changed what might have been the course of my life. Most of all you opened a door that I might enter a world in which people seek justice, dignity, and inclusion for all people, and a world that might one day be free of injustice and isolation. We're the same Bea, we're just the same.
Love always,
"Mikey"
PS
If you're still there, go to "our" beach and look out at the water. I'm just on the other side.