Ever since I was a child, I absolutely HATED the monkey bars. True, it might have been
(and still be) my incredible lack of upper arm strength, but it was also: the blisters my hands
immediately formed, the way I would “lose steam” half-way through the mission and dangle like a stranded fish on a line, and finally, the dreaded drop I inevitably made to the impaling wood chips below. Yes, I do not have fond memories at all of that piece of equipment, and yet, it remains as popular as it has ever been, unassailably assigned to every playground from sea to
shining sea.
When my kids began attempting to cross them, it was a whole new batch of fear to
wrestle. Now I wasn’t only worried about my own scars, but the new, inevitable“owies” that might form. I’ll never forget my first phone call from the school office, “Your daughter fell from the monkey bars and hit her head.” And then my second of the same offense a week later, “Your daughter fell from the monkey bars and hurt her back.” We had a serious talk both times about how there’s no shame in avoiding them altogether, but kids will perform according to their own will, and hers was strong. She has since conquered what I never could, crossing from side to side with ease … but I know sleeping giants don’t sleep forever, and this week those monkey bars reared their ugly metal once more.
I just so happened to be passing the office earlier this week and saw a white-faced, bloody-chin-bearing, brave boy, sitting on the bench. “What happened?” I asked, unable to look away from the little bruiser.
“Monkey bars,” Patrick said with a wince.
“Say no more,” I thought glumly. The beast claims another victim.
Every mother dreads that phone call, the one I’d already had two of, but not every mother hears the report that her son literally bit through his bottom lip, and is now awaiting stitches. But here’s where the story gets good. Even though the accident was awful, and even though I’m certain poor Patrick was in great pain, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a bevy of immediate stand-in mothers and fathers as I did that day in the office. From recess supervisors to office administrators and passerby teachers, our little patient might arguably have had more attentive devotion than he’d ever have received before. The most steadfast of these instant caretakers was Ms. Lori Blair herself. There wasn’t a moment to pass that she was not kneeling in front of, or sitting beside Patrick, wiping him up, cooling his new forming bruises, and speaking lovingly with encouragement and confidence.
American author Edwin Louis Cole once said, “God never ends anything on a negative; God always ends on a positive.” And while we all know that no one wants to be hurt at school, away from the support of family, I must say that courageous as he was, Patrick was loved on and prayed over in divinely-inspired ways that day, right here in the Westlake school office. I’m
going to try to remember his story, and I hope you will too, the next time we get a call about those tricky-icky monkey bars.
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