The Boy with Little Arms

5 October 2007 (Updated 25 May 2009)

by HRM Deborah

I am thinking I was maybe ten years old at the time, when I use to still go to my grandfather’s home and in those days children sometimes played American baseball in the street. All the children that wished to in the neighborhood would come and we would split into teams to play this game.

One day a boy that was living with his grandparents just a little down the street from mine, came one day and asked to join in on the game.

What was different about this boy is he had no hands and maybe three quarter’s of his arms. He happened to been born this way.

All of us children got together and decided if this meant so much to him, we would let him join into our fun.

To our surprise he actually could play very well, he even could bat and to this day I still am not sure how he was able to do this.

Because I was the one that had asked the other children if it was a good idea for him to play, this boy with little arms came upon himself to be my friend. We actually became very good friends, especially when he found that playing with all of us made him so happy.

One day, (my grandfather's wife) after my grandfather had died, decided she not wish for me to play anymore or be friends with the boy. I became very sad about this and it became so unbearable that I asked my parents if it would be a good idea, to go to the boys grandparents and explain why I couldn’t not only play anymore, but allowed to be friends with their grand son.

One of the few time’s my father agreed and my mother thought it was a wonderful idea, except for one problem, how to go to the grandparent’s home without my grandfather's wife getting upset.

Well I stayed in the yard for a little time until the coast was clear and my parents had gone inside the house. I hurried down the street to boy’s grandparents and set out to explain that I was sorry for what I was not able to do anymore. While the grandfather understood, I still felt bad because if I was not going to play the game no one else was either and this meant the boy with little arms could not either.

What was even worse, are the parents of the boy since he had little arms was why he came to live with his grand parents to begin with.

Also, I was the boy’s first friend ( he use to call me his 'best friend') and he had to be close to about my age, so this seemed worse to me because I couldn’t understand especially at the time why he had not had friends before.

While everyone even the boy understood my dilemma, the boy told me everything would turn out good. So from that time, until my parents and I moved, me and the boy would stand on the curb and in a manner of speaking waved as well as smile at each other so we knew we was still friends. This lasted for almost two years.