April 9, 1998

Dear Julie,

The Cincinnati kids are in town for spring break. We used to play Whiffle Ball on their visits, pounding the whistling sphere for hours into the twilight until a gutter finally ended the game. No one has yelled "Let's play ball" this time, but of course the words were always mine anyway.

This is what they did for fun: time themselves running around the university track. Nephew Kyle, who's in the seventh grade, beat his former trackman dad at 400 meters. Kyle has been able to run with adults for years, but he's suddenly taller, his voice has lowered, and the wind can't catch him. He's at the beginning of becoming a young man.

My nieces Carly and Kim are younger and changing less quickly. Kim still wants to climb every forbidden wall and is not afraid to fall. Carly is trying to invent a more beautiful mouse pad.

The family has bought a big new house they can't move into until November. They brought us a video tour that makes you feel almost like a burglar walking about in a strange house. There's a photograph of some handsome people sailing. Here's the sunken master bedroom and bath with Jacuzzi.

They are leading golden lives at the prosperous end of the American middle class, these children. Every set of braces and lessons is theirs along with many trips to Disney World. Bless them. Every child should feel the same sense of possibilities.

When their mom was growing up, that was that when the weekly groceries were bought on Friday. The food had to last. You learned to snack creatively, especially on Thursday afternoons. I'm still fond of Worcestershire sauce and salt on white bread.

We weren't poor but we knew that every cent counted. "Watch your pennies, and the nickels and dimes will take care of themselves," my mom used to say. Our parents gave us everything they had to give. In the end, that's what mattered.

Each of us is born into unique circumstances, the setting most suited to our soul's development, I suspect. If the feeling of abundance remains foreign to me, it's a spiritual unfamiliarity. At parties, I worry about whether there's enough food and drink to go around. On vacation, I bring too many clothes. I wonder if there's enough love for everyone.

Perhaps Kyle will struggle with the meaning of abundance from a different perspective. Against his mother's advice, he used his babysitting money to buy an expensive pair of Oakley sunglasses he seldom wears for fear he'll lose or break them.

Growing up is a somersault over the brink no matter who you are. In elementary school, you're grouped with children whose parents live in the same neighborhood. In junior high, you become aware that people who have money are treated differently from those who have not.

In one class, we held mock elections, and as candidates will do people began making wild promises about what they would do if elected. One girl invited the whole class over to her house for a swimming party. She was elected. As I shyly arose to make my speech, probably looking dumbfounded, she whispered that I could promise a party at her pool, too.

So I did. "Where?" cracked a wise guy in the front row. "In your bathtub?"

That girl probably was the only person in the class whose family had a swimming pool. But at that moment, I was ashamed that mine didn't.

Seventh grade is tough. I'm not ashamed now.

Growing up is a lifelong procession of unfoldment, of courageously turning yourself inside out to learn who you are until you are who you are.

It's leaving your sunglasses at home because it's better to see and be seen.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.