In Loving Memory of Lawrence
I grew up in city centre, a block from the railway tracks. The house, a double with three bedrooms, one bath, and a coal furnace, was always full of people. Dad was overseas so my mother, my sister, May, and I, had moved in with my grandmother and step-grandfather. Nany cleaned office buildings at night and grampa was a retired bus driver.
The player piano in the living room was always the centre of attraction. We took turns trying to press the pedals and create the old, familiar tunes. Over the years the building also housed a senator, my aunt, niece, and finally, in 1945, my father. His return from WWII meant four of us shared the large bedroom. I must admit that I didn’t think that was unusual.
Now in my 80s, I spend a great deal of time remembering things I thought I had forgotten. Fortunately, I have dozens of pictures that bring back memories of times past.
One of my favourites is the 1940’s photograph of the friends with whom I played, walked to school, and fought. (Even then I had a temper that sometimes erupted for minor slights.) The picture is old and grainy but considering it has spent 75 years in a photo album, it is a treasure.
As I inspect the photo, nine happy faces from the distant past stare back at me. I am obviously the blond-haired child in the middle of the back row. The dark-haired, grinning boy by my side is Lawrence. The other names have faded from my memory over the years: Gloria? Lynne? Bobby? No matter: I remembered the important things.
Lawrence
I met Lawrence when I was four; he was a few months younger, so my mother said I had to look after him. It was difficult to image me being responsible for anyone – even myself. There I was, hiding behind my mother’s skirts, peeking out every now and then to look at Lawrence and his mother.
Although I never understood what was said about or to Lawrence and his family, it was obvious even to this young child, that my soon-to-be ward, was being treated in a manner quite different than the other children. It was a mystery I would ponder for several years. To this day, I maintain that ethnicity should not be a factor in any relationship. I hope others live the same way.
To everyone’s surprise, I took my new responsibilities as seriously as a four-year-old can. Lawrence and I became best friends. Hour after hour we sat on the porch of one of the nearby houses, chattering like Magpies. We played games until it was getting dark and mother called us in for bedtime.
We were “Magic Girl” and “Magic Boy” and no one could see us. In the initial stages of darkness, we became “Midnight Creepers” and crawled through the grass beside the sidewalk. We ventured one, two, or three houses, sometimes even to the corner lot if we were brave. How still we were when someone walked down the street! Passers-by made no acknowledgement of our presence, confirming our belief that we were indeed invisible.
Over the years, I continued to protect Lawrence – from the kids at school, and from the neighbourhood bullies. My bicycle raced me to the scene of dozens of confrontations where my young friend was the object of a serious bullying campaign initiated by local boys, much older and bigger than me and Lawrence.
In most cases I was lucky. I screamed at the boys which attracted the attention of parents up and down the street, and the bullies departed in a hurry. Lawrence was safe once again.
Lawrence and I even set my house on fire. It was an accident, of course, but typical of children with no cell phones or computers to entertain them. We were sitting under our back porch one day in early Fall engrossed in our game. After some time had passed, I complained that I was cold.
Being a true and gallant six-year-old friend, Lawrence gathered some newspapers and lit a small fire. Everything was fine until, suddenly, it wasn’t. My mother was calling for me and I knew we shouldn’t be under the porch, so Lawrence and I threw the rest of the papers on the fire in an attempt to hide the evidence of our presence, and ran to answer my mother’s call.
Both my family and Lawrence’s were suddenly in a panic. The smell of the wooden porch burning had my grandfather crawling under the porch to douse the flames with a pail of rainwater that always stood at the side of the house. I do not remember if our families punished us, but we never did anything like that again.
In 1951 my father contracted the building of a new house and we moved to the suburbs. My visits with Lawrence became infrequent, and then stopped. But our story continued for over 75 years.
Lawrence “found” me every ten years or so, and visited me, my husband, and children. We reminisced about the past and caught up on our respective families. In a special gift to me, when I was confined to the hospital, Lawrence cared for my husband while we were waiting for an emergency bed for Al in an Alzheimer’s secure facility.
With our homes in different cities, our visits were infrequent but Lawrence and his wife, Mary, were my guests often over the years. It was always a pleasure to welcome them and we enjoyed going out to dinner or a movie.
Lawrence provided me with the names of the children in the old photo and was somehow able to locate all of them. He even arranged a house party for us to get reaquainted.
The story ends sadly as most stories did during the Covid 19 lockdown. Lawrence was in a hospital hundreds of miles from my home and under Ministry of Health guidelines for the Corona Virus, neither his friends nor family were allowed to visit. Lawrence finally lost his battle with cancer. My friend died alone. He deserved better than that.
Lawrence was my special friend for almost 70 years. I miss him.
Joan Black
