How many of you out there, have thought back about things you wish you had done? It might have been a simple missed opportunity that would have changed your life in some way, or perhaps it is something where you simply made a wrong decision without any life-changing implications. I have found myself doing that from time to time, even though I try to always look forward and not fret about things that cannot be changed. Perhaps it is because I now see my life closing more rapidly and consequently wanting to make sure I don’t repeat mistakes. I am not really sure.
In recent years and at this senior age of my life, I have been working in the school system with young children. Perhaps it is this that causes me to think back to a time when I was their age or younger. Every Monday we have what is called “Advisement Day” where we teachers take the time to talk to the students about behavior and responsibility. Each Monday morning focuses on some word. This past week, the word was “character”, and the week before that it was “bullying”.
I am sure the kids were unaware at the time that I was probably paying more attention to those sessions than they were. Most of them, although participating in the discussions, were simply glad to have their first period math class cut in half due to the advisement sessions. Others were thinking about Spring Break.
When talking about bullying, we stress that the children should not become bystanders. That is, they should not either gather around to egg on the bullying nor should they not try to aid the person being bullied. I was still thinking about that when I prepared for my advisement session to discuss the word character. It made me think back about my best friend Mike in the 6th grade and an incident that happened out on the playground one afternoon during recess. He had bullied another student brutally.
I was a bystander. I was everything that our bullying advisement session tried to discourage, and it showed a really weak character on my part. I found myself wishing I could turn back time and relive that day and done the right thing. Instead. I felt like crap fifty-four years late.
Mike was a popular guy at school. He lived right behind me, so I thought of him as my best friend. He was a natural athlete and was the kind of guy that was always chosen first when a team sport was being assembled. I envied him because he was so good at sports and everyone wanted to be his friend. I usually “went along” with anything he did because I felt his friendship was so important to me.
I am so ashamed of myself for not intervening. To a certain extent, I was afraid of Mike and did not want to get beat up for intervening. However, I had been in physical confrontations with Mike before and knew I could maybe defeat him. So physical threat to me was not a valid excuse. I was more concerned about losing Mike’s friendship and being teased by the other students.
You see, the victim was a girl. Other kids made fun of the girl constantly because she dressed like a boy, looked like a boy, and loved to do everything boys do. In fact, she could hit a baseball a country mile. That is what prompted the incident. We were playing baseball and she asked to have a chance at bat. Mike was pitching. Mike was sure she could not hit his pitch, but she knocked it out of sight. Furious, Mike charged toward her and starting striking her in the face with his fists. Everyone just stood there and watched. He was calling her a freak and a dike. Her nose was bloodied and her eyes blackened. I remember feeling bad for her but still I did nothing. I was more worried about being friends with the bully and not wanting to be teased about the victim being my girlfriend.
I recently received an e-mail from an old classmate. The sender attached a funeral notice saying that the girl had died at age 62. It said she had no children and did not mention a husband. I wonder if I had taken the appropriate action back then would it have changed her life. Would it have changed me in any way too? I will never know.
Should have, could have, but didn’t! I would never stand by today and let a man beat a woman for any reason. I wish I had had the balls to show that character back then too. If there is an afterlife and she is there now, I hope she has forgiven me and everyone else that stood by and simply watched.
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