Childhood's End

Ronald was a childhood friend on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. He was disabled and couldn’t walk properly. He could walk in a fashion, moving slowly in short bursts, resting and leaning on things in between. I didn’t know at the time what his trouble was. I don’t think I ever asked. I was a stupid kid who just accepted it. ‘Oh, Ronald can’t walk properly, okay.’ Most of the time he didn’t want help, but I did occasionally help him stand and he could lean on me if he was having trouble. 

 Only now, after some research, do I realise what Ronald’s trouble was. Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Type III. It all fits. 

Towards the end of primary school I started to play more sport, which Ronald could not do. I started to see less and less of him. He couldn’t keep up, literally and figuratively. I left him behind, literally and figuratively. 

Then his family moved north to Bundaberg. We exchanged a few letters. Then eventually we lost contact. High school came along, then work and study and life in general and I forgot all about Ronald. 

It was the solipsism of youth. When you’re young, you unknowingly live by the cliché ‘out of sight, out of mind’. 

After many years, many many years, I began to think of Ronald again. I wondered if I might have hurt him. I started to wish if I could ask him to forgive me if I had. The worst of it is that I had been unkind to him. It took me years to understand that.

I tried a few searches on the web and that sort of thing, to see if I could find him, but nothing ever came up, so I just put the idea aside. More years passed.

Recently I was looking something up, when suddenly Ronald came into my head, which had no real connection with what I was doing. It occurred to me where I might find something. So I looked. And I found him. It’s him. Definitely him. 

Ronald died over forty-two years ago. I was shocked, but not surprised. He was never a well boy. It was no surprise that he didn’t make it to twenty years of age. He’s buried in the Bundaberg cemetery. That's how I found him. The cemetery records are now on the web. 

My search didn't stop there. I had a fantasy that I might be able to find his mum, Alice. Maybe I could call her and express my condolences after more than forty years. Maybe I could find some solace that way. One discovery lead onto another. Ronald's dad had died in an accident. Alice had remarried some time later and took a new surname. Then I finally found Alice. Now I’m not making this up. I was doing this searching one day at about four in the afternoon. That morning at ten o’clock was her memorial service in Bundaberg. That very day. I wouldn’t have thought I could have felt any worse after discovering what happened with Ronald, but that did it. 

So now I grieve for Ronald without any solace. Can you grieve for someone you haven’t seen for fifty years, has been dead for over forty, and you only just found out about his death recently? Apparently so. 

I must have loved him, or at least I love him now. Him and my childhood are entwined in my mind as I remember the places and times we played together. Ronald and my childhood live in my dreamland outside of time. 

But now my childhood is over and done. It's ended with one swift slash of belated grief. Even as a construct of the mind, even as a dream, it no longer exists. Its fabric has been swept away. 

My childhood has ended and I suddenly feel very…

Old.