forcing christmas

I run into a kid walking down the street. Literally run into him; I’m looking down at my phone, he is just starting at his feet slowly walking along. His four front teeth do not have any other beside them, and stick out a little bit over his lower lip when he smiles. He doesn’t smile much though, not until I made a dumb joke about him being cold with not much more than a long sleeve t-shirt on. He is fairly talkative though, as he looks up at me with these hazel dough eyes. After each sentence his right hand sweeping his bangs further over to the right because whenever he begins to talk they slowly drift down to cover his face. He almost looks like a caricature from a Nickelodeon show, like main character from The Fairly Odd Parents.


He seems about the same age as my brother, ten or twelve or so, and I am wondering what ever could make him look so gloomy. At that age six days before Christmas I was nothing but smiles, running around and running just about everywhere, unable to sleep with anticipation. Anticipation for what I’m not exactly sure, because Christmas was never too much of ado in my home. But I remained relentlessly excited for those few hours that frosty morning.

I asked this kid if he was lost, if he needed help or if he wanted me to call his parents. I basically just barraged this little boy with considerate questions, because it was peculiar that he was walking all alone on the side of the road and looking rather down.
“What’s going on buddy? Are you sad?”
“no.”
“really?”
“yea.”
Perhaps in the city this conversation with a stranger would be odd for a child to have, but around here it is not so strange at all. So I keep him standing on the side of the road for minute, pushing him to tell me what is wrong.

“It is almost Christmas, aren’t you excited? ... Your parents must live around here, do you guys have a tree up yet?”
“I’m excited, I dunno.”

“What’s your favorite part about Christmas buddy? This season has to cheer you up!”
This was going to be my blog topic of the week, cheesy, yes, but oh I am sucker for the holidays this season (typically I am not so enthused). But I feel this silly holiday spirit taking over me and am indulging myself in attempts to cheer this little guy up.

“Well my favorite part was Christmas pancakes. My dad cooked it, and he never does that.”
“So there you go- there is something to look forward to.”

“My dad is not here, he traveling or something, and he has not lived in our house for months, he moved out a while ago…”
As he says this no tears run down his face, no real change in facial expression at all. He just keeps looking up at me, brushing away his hair every thirty seconds and blinking/squinting from the glare of the sun.

"its good though, because they used to fight all the time, and I would record it on my phone... i don't think my mom is very happy."
He states this just like he states any old life fact, i can imagine he telling me that ice cream cone melted with the exact same tone. The stoic face of this kid is creepily impressive. At least the sun has given him a more confused expression, rather than the almost expressionless face I was looking down at before. But still, this is not the conversation I was hoping for. I'm almost intimidated especially because before this moment I had that 'talking to a kid' voice going strong, and now I realize his maturity level probably deserves to be spoken to as a peer.

“Buddy I’m sorry. Surely you’re dad will come home soon, and you’ll figure it out.” I have no idea what to say.

“No, it doesn’t matter. My mom says she’s signing papers after Christmas, and she never wants to see him again.”

“Oh my gosh, are you talking to anybody about this? Are you all right?”

“Yeah I have a counselor. Thanks though. I’m going to keep on walking home now…”

“Bye kido, merry Christmas.”

And he waves good-bye still looking right up at me, and then begins walking forward. This kid must not be ten; he just looked so, because his conversation ability was much better than the average ten year old. But I could not help but write about this little encounter. I find that sometimes in the spirit of such togetherness, many of us are faking; because often it is farce and so many of us feel actually feel more isolated, but have no other option other than to trudge along.