Oh Very Young

 Week Five: Oh Very Young 

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time?

You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while.

–Cat Stevens, Oh Very Young, from Buddha and the Chocolate Box

I met Joyce Kahiro at Overlea High School where I worked. Joyce was easy to spot despite her short stature. She was the only student granted permission to wear a hat in the building. The reasons why students could not wear hats did not apply to Joyce. She wasn’t partially hiding her identity. She wasn’t wearing gang colors. She wasn’t just being cool. The reason Joyce was allowed to wear her hat didn’t apply to anyone else. 

As a young teenager Joyce and her mother came from Kenya to visit Joyce’s sisters who were living in the United States. Soon after arriving, Joyce experienced severe headaches. After a brain cancer diagnosis and enduring multiple surgeries, Joyce never returned home.

I cannot remember the first time we met, but I can vividly remember the many, many conversations we had. Most times our paths crossed I would speak first.

You there! You know the rules. No hats!

“You are very funny. You are only funny to yourself,” she might reply as she walked calmly away.

She would often walk nonchalantly into my office and usually immediately to the candy jar on my desk, taking what she wanted without seeking or waiting for permission. Our exchanges might have sounded like this:

No Hats at Overlea High School!

“Very funny. What do you do?”

What do you mean ‘what do I do?’ I’m the principal. I’m the boss! I run this well-oiled machine. More like a king really.

“Oh yes, the king, I forgot. Every time I come here you are doing nothing.”

Nothing? You think guarding that candy jar is nothing?

“OK King, I am leaving now.”

Get out! and take that hat off!!!

Joyce was an excellent student. Joyce was funny. She was charming. She was as comfortable in her seventeen-year old skin as any teenager ever was. She had no body image issues, and she took her challenges in stride. Thinking I might never see her again, I was almost sad the day I handed her a diploma and hugged her in front of a cheering commencement audience.

Before that day arrived I was contacted by Make-a-Wish Foundation. Joyce had overcome very long odds. She survived and more importantly she had thrived. When given a wish, Joyce asked that her aging grandmother would come from Kenya to attend her graduation ceremony.

Joyce had not seen her grandmother in years, so you can imagine her excitement. One day before her grandmother arrived I saw Joyce after school.

Joyce, does your grandmother speak English?

“No.”

I want to speak to her? Will you translate for me?

“I will not let you speak to her.”

OK good, you’ll translate. How do you say, ‘it's very nice to meet you?’

“I will translate by telling her you said for her to return to Africa!”

You little devil! I'm going to hire a translator and tell her what a brat you are!

Her smile was never bigger.

C.S. Lewis once said, “There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” I think I know what he meant. In her first year in college, Joyce’s headaches came back. When I learned that Joyce had died, I could hear her very thick melodic accent telling me that only babies cry. 

I found the funeral home in a neighborhood in Baltimore City that I had never visited. Not completely sure I was even at the right place, I entered cautiously, slowly opening the door. I knew the next few minutes would be difficult. I learned that lesson years earlier when I visited a viewing for an ex-student of mine named Arnold. I had taught all three Spicer children over the years, so I knew Mrs. Spicer well. As I had entered the room where Arnold lay, she lept to her feet and rushed to his casket. “I told you Arnold! I told you he would come!” she repeated as she draped herself over his body.

The only other person in the room with Joyce was her mother.  She rose slowly and held her arms out to me. I do not remember what was said, if anything. I will never forget holding on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWW97FWmiXQ