Joey Campbell is the nicest boy in the neighborhood.
A junior at Bishop Machebeuf High School, Joey is a year ahead of me. As soon as we all graduate from grade school, we simply cut across Elm Street to Machebeuf.
Our little neighborhood is really a small community in the middle of big bustling Denver, and Joey is everybody's favorite. Park Hill Public is right down the street from our Blessed Sacrament Elementary. The three neighborhood churches - Blessed Sacrament, Park Hill United Methodist and Montview Presbyterian - are a stone's throw from each other. Whether we are Catholic, Protestant or Jewish, we grow up playing with each other, and Joey Campbell is our unofficial leader.
The Campbells are a big Catholic family like us. Their home on Forest Street, just three blocks over from Eudora, boasts a trampoline in the backyard. Joey organizes neighborhood games, many of which revolve around the tramp. And there's always a baseball game. Joey loves baseball and plays for Machebeuf's team. All the Cambells are sweet-natured kids with mega-watt miles, and their tolerant mother doesn't mind the scores of kids who flood her backyard every day after school.
"Joey, don't play too rough with those young kids!" she yells out her kitchen window.
But Joey never plays rough.
I am attending my brother's eighth grade basketball game on a Sunday evening in early March. On my way to get a drink at halftime, I see Joey standing by a bunch of kids. Our eyes meet, and we smile. I would never remember such an innocuous little greeting except that I will remember it later as Joey's last night on Earth. The next day, Monday, March 8th, Joey leaves us forever.
My own brother Joe is practicing with his basketball team in the old Blessed Sacrament gym when Machebeuf's baseball boys stream in to warm up in a corner. Joe turns when he hears a commotion. It's Joey Campbell. He collapses to the floor in the middle of his baseball teammates. The coach and another adult try to revive him, but Joey will not survive. We learn the next day that Joey Campbell, the nicest boy we know, has died of a heart attack. He is 17-years-old.
The neighborhood is devastated. At Joey's funeral, I see Joey's older sisters, their faces contorted in grief and bewilderment. I ache for them. And I ache for myself. What if something ever happened to MY brother Joe? The two of us fight like there's no tomorrow, and sometimes I detest him with every fiber of my being. The thought, however, of losing him terrifies me. I turn to look at him at the end of our pew at Blessed Sacrament Church. He doesn't fixate on the Campbell family like I do but instead studies with focused concentration the back of the head of the man in front of him. He's trying not to cry. I know this because I know my brother.
But Joe doesn't cry - not for a while. He holds tight to his grief and to the terrible image of Joey Campbell's collapse in the gym. One day a week or so later, he grabs a sandwich in the kitchen.
"Joe," Mom says softly as she stands at the stove. Joe moves silently away from her. Mom grabs him. "Talk to me, Joe."
He attempts to wrestle away. "I'm fine, Mom," he chokes. All at once, though, he surrenders the battle and leans against Mom to cry his heart out.
"It's all right," she murmurs and rocks him back and forth. "Everything will be all right."
Nothing, though, is all right. For a week, everybody walks around like zombies. We have a special Mass at school for Joey, and kids break down in the hallway to cry.
After school, I take long walks with Duchess and yearn for spring to arrive with reassuring flowers and restoring warmth. But Duchess, our sweet dog, is failing. More and more frequently we cut our walks short, and sometimes I have to hoist her little bulk into my arms to carry her the last few blocks home.
I am nearly 16 and hardly remember a time Duchess hasn't been with us. My little brothers and sisters have never known life without her. But Duchess is getting old.
She sleeps at the foot of my bed and sometimes, in winter, likes to burrow under the sheets all the way to the end of the bed. I worry that she will suffocate, but all through the night, I hear her soft whiffling and know she's slumbering peacefully. Now, however, she is so arthritic and heavy that she can't propel herself up the stairs. So every night we spread a blanket at the bottom of the staircase. She obediently steps into the middle, and either Joe and I or Mom and Dad carry her up.
In her younger years, Duchess makes friends in the neighborhood. She spends countless hours with her old boyfriend Hubert. When we call her home, she gleefully comes yapping and running to us on her tiny legs, long ears flying. We joke that she resembles a sleek little black seal and even barks like one. Lately, however, she is too content to crawl on the sofa and curl up to sleep behind Mom's back.
On a Tuesday night, two weeks after Joey Campbell's death, Duchess dies peacefully in her sleep at the end of my bed. We discover her still little body just as we are all ready to go to bed ourselves.
It's ten o'clock at night, but Dad and my brothers dig a grave for Duchess in Mom's little garden in our backyard. They lower her into the ground, and Mom and I cry softly. The little kids shiver against the cold March night.
Dad stands upright. He is still healing from two sprained ankles and steadies himself with a shovel. "Let's say a little prayer for Duchess," he says.
We huddle together in the darkness as Dad says some words over our beloved little dog. I look up at a starry sky and think of Joey Campbell, and for the first time in my life I wonder seriously about Heaven. Wherever it is, I feel sure Joey is there. I can see his big smile and the way he lights up when his little sister Susie perfects a back flip on the trampoline. I think of the way he crouches close to the ground on the baseball field, the intensity of his gaze beneath the brim of his cap.
I hope Joey Campbell is supremely and completely healthy and happy.
And wherever Heaven is, I hope tonight there's room for one little black dachshund who barks like a seal. I almost see her, ears flapping, running with all her tiny might to find the familiar sweet boy with a mega-watt smile.
To find Joey.
A junior at Bishop Machebeuf High School, Joey is a year ahead of me. As soon as we all graduate from grade school, we simply cut across Elm Street to Machebeuf.
Our little neighborhood is really a small community in the middle of big bustling Denver, and Joey is everybody's favorite. Park Hill Public is right down the street from our Blessed Sacrament Elementary. The three neighborhood churches - Blessed Sacrament, Park Hill United Methodist and Montview Presbyterian - are a stone's throw from each other. Whether we are Catholic, Protestant or Jewish, we grow up playing with each other, and Joey Campbell is our unofficial leader.
The Campbells are a big Catholic family like us. Their home on Forest Street, just three blocks over from Eudora, boasts a trampoline in the backyard. Joey organizes neighborhood games, many of which revolve around the tramp. And there's always a baseball game. Joey loves baseball and plays for Machebeuf's team. All the Cambells are sweet-natured kids with mega-watt miles, and their tolerant mother doesn't mind the scores of kids who flood her backyard every day after school.
"Joey, don't play too rough with those young kids!" she yells out her kitchen window.
But Joey never plays rough.
I am attending my brother's eighth grade basketball game on a Sunday evening in early March. On my way to get a drink at halftime, I see Joey standing by a bunch of kids. Our eyes meet, and we smile. I would never remember such an innocuous little greeting except that I will remember it later as Joey's last night on Earth. The next day, Monday, March 8th, Joey leaves us forever.
My own brother Joe is practicing with his basketball team in the old Blessed Sacrament gym when Machebeuf's baseball boys stream in to warm up in a corner. Joe turns when he hears a commotion. It's Joey Campbell. He collapses to the floor in the middle of his baseball teammates. The coach and another adult try to revive him, but Joey will not survive. We learn the next day that Joey Campbell, the nicest boy we know, has died of a heart attack. He is 17-years-old.
The neighborhood is devastated. At Joey's funeral, I see Joey's older sisters, their faces contorted in grief and bewilderment. I ache for them. And I ache for myself. What if something ever happened to MY brother Joe? The two of us fight like there's no tomorrow, and sometimes I detest him with every fiber of my being. The thought, however, of losing him terrifies me. I turn to look at him at the end of our pew at Blessed Sacrament Church. He doesn't fixate on the Campbell family like I do but instead studies with focused concentration the back of the head of the man in front of him. He's trying not to cry. I know this because I know my brother.
But Joe doesn't cry - not for a while. He holds tight to his grief and to the terrible image of Joey Campbell's collapse in the gym. One day a week or so later, he grabs a sandwich in the kitchen.
 |
| My brother Joe, 1971 |
"Joe," Mom says softly as she stands at the stove. Joe moves silently away from her. Mom grabs him. "Talk to me, Joe."
He attempts to wrestle away. "I'm fine, Mom," he chokes. All at once, though, he surrenders the battle and leans against Mom to cry his heart out.
"It's all right," she murmurs and rocks him back and forth. "Everything will be all right."
Nothing, though, is all right. For a week, everybody walks around like zombies. We have a special Mass at school for Joey, and kids break down in the hallway to cry.
After school, I take long walks with Duchess and yearn for spring to arrive with reassuring flowers and restoring warmth. But Duchess, our sweet dog, is failing. More and more frequently we cut our walks short, and sometimes I have to hoist her little bulk into my arms to carry her the last few blocks home.
I am nearly 16 and hardly remember a time Duchess hasn't been with us. My little brothers and sisters have never known life without her. But Duchess is getting old.
She sleeps at the foot of my bed and sometimes, in winter, likes to burrow under the sheets all the way to the end of the bed. I worry that she will suffocate, but all through the night, I hear her soft whiffling and know she's slumbering peacefully. Now, however, she is so arthritic and heavy that she can't propel herself up the stairs. So every night we spread a blanket at the bottom of the staircase. She obediently steps into the middle, and either Joe and I or Mom and Dad carry her up.
In her younger years, Duchess makes friends in the neighborhood. She spends countless hours with her old boyfriend Hubert. When we call her home, she gleefully comes yapping and running to us on her tiny legs, long ears flying. We joke that she resembles a sleek little black seal and even barks like one. Lately, however, she is too content to crawl on the sofa and curl up to sleep behind Mom's back.
On a Tuesday night, two weeks after Joey Campbell's death, Duchess dies peacefully in her sleep at the end of my bed. We discover her still little body just as we are all ready to go to bed ourselves.
It's ten o'clock at night, but Dad and my brothers dig a grave for Duchess in Mom's little garden in our backyard. They lower her into the ground, and Mom and I cry softly. The little kids shiver against the cold March night.
 |
| Our little Duchess, 1971 |
We huddle together in the darkness as Dad says some words over our beloved little dog. I look up at a starry sky and think of Joey Campbell, and for the first time in my life I wonder seriously about Heaven. Wherever it is, I feel sure Joey is there. I can see his big smile and the way he lights up when his little sister Susie perfects a back flip on the trampoline. I think of the way he crouches close to the ground on the baseball field, the intensity of his gaze beneath the brim of his cap.
I hope Joey Campbell is supremely and completely healthy and happy.
And wherever Heaven is, I hope tonight there's room for one little black dachshund who barks like a seal. I almost see her, ears flapping, running with all her tiny might to find the familiar sweet boy with a mega-watt smile.
To find Joey.
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