Rita Beth

This life seems to be something like one long moment, with the constant illusion of a billion passing moments, and a few become greatly impacting, and a few become entrenched in frozen vaults of memory, never forgotten.

Rita Beth was mainstreamed into our regular grade school, I recall her starting from around third grade, although she was a few years older, and had major developmental disabilities. Rita Beth made sounds, never spoke words, and always appeared flushed with random excitement.

Her long, auburn hair always flowing behind her, very pale skin with bright green eyes, and rose-tinged cheeks, Rita Beth was always out of breath with the most innocent, otherwordly joy, as if she was always hearing stars in their secret choir, practicing in broad daylight. 

At recess on the playground, she mostly ran, or galloped, as if she were really a wild, tireless filly in a young girl's body, clearly equine in personality and nature.

Running for her was like a release of sheer bliss, up and down the hot, noon time blacktop, straight through the kickball games and hop scotch kids, everyone knew this was just what Rita Beth did. So, we all moved out of her way as she zoomed by, stopping briefly to rest, then off again in another random direction. 

I was fascinated with her, mystified by a reality so unknown to me. What were her thoughts, I wondered, although I once heard a teacher say Rita Beth was mentally about three-years old. She had zero friends, never played with anyone, yet she was the happiest kid in school.

One day at lunch, coming out of my classroom, I saw a small but growing crowd of kids at the far end of the playground. But it was all too quiet to be a fight, didn't know what it was. 

There was some giggling and whispers, then, wedging through to the center of attention, I was stunned by the sight- Rita Beth sitting on the ground, her yellow flower dress bunched up, as she held onto her bloody knee, but just silent, softly rocking herself. She must have fallen, and now everyone just looked on.

Rita Beth must have been in pain, the scrape looked pretty bad. But her typically rapturous expression remained unchanged, staring closely at the oozing red. Looking across the circle of kids, I locked eyes with my friend Hannah, who also looked stricken by the scene. 

We rushed up to Rita Beth from opposite sides, and I fumbled through my brown bag lunch, looking for that folded napkin, as Hannah quietly talked to her. But just then the grownups arrived. They soon got Rita Beth on her feet, and off to the nurse's office. Hobbling and smiling broadly, her eyes strained skyward, as if at those blessed daylight stars again. 

It's inexplicable, this lifelong moment, and the persuasive Maya charade of time passing, and what memory decides to encapsulate forever in its own permafrost, thawing to surface only by some untraceable path of reference. 

Couldn't name it then, but six decades ago, from Rita Beth I somehow learned there are other wholely unreachable realities, other definitions of normalcy and relevance. I began to consider the vastly immeasurable distance between the galaxies of our human experience.