Connie, Did You Have a Good Life?

I literally hadn't thought of Connie Stubblefield in probably forty years. But Mom sent some old yearbooks home by son Clay when he was here visiting recently. She said to keep them but not throw them away as she would take them back if I didn't want them. I kept them. I looked up ancient pictures of my classmates but oddly, remembered the ones who weren't there. I remembered David my good friend from early grades, actually only two. But we remained good friends through high school and kept up with each other through college. But he wasn't in those year books. I remembered Daryl Wayne. Daryl had a playground accident when we were in the fifth grade. He hit his head on some concrete during some rough play. The blow caused a clot, the clot swelled the brain and he remained in comatose state for three years until his death. Daryl wasn't in the yearbook either. Philip Becker wasn't there. His family moved to Ennis so they could attend St. John's Catholic school after about the sixth grade. We kept in touch through sports until I lost track of Philip after high school. He was probably the nicest and smartest of the bunch. Well, maybe David, too. Then there was Connie. Connie started the first grade with all of us. She was different in some ways but all of us were in our own ways I guess. Connie had skin that was different than the rest of us. She wasn't black, she wasn't Hispanic, but her skin was darker. I heard later someone say she had an "olive" complexion. I thought olive was green and Connie wasn't green so that didn't make sense to me then. Connie was also poorer, I think. She lived with her grandmother. That also made her different back then. I seem to recall she had a little brother, but I'm not sure. Her mother would show up on occasion for some big event at school. I never knew nor was it my place to know what was going on with her family. If I ever knew the particulars of Connie's family situation I couldn't really say for sure but they would have been wasted on a six or eight or ten year old like me anyway. Her grandmother didn't speak much English if my memory serves me correctly. She looked like Mother Teresa, covered head and all. She was old and slow and I remember thinking Connie may be taking care of her grandmother more than grandmother is taking care of her. Connie may have been pretty, I just don't know. She didn't have anyone to work with her on those sorts of things. I think she was thin, had pointed features and something called high cheek bones. I never thought of Connie as pretty-never thought she was ugly. She was kind of a tom-boy and liked baseball. When you know someone at age 6 until just before puberty awakens new realms of reality, well, Connie was just Connie. I'd see her for nine months of the year for five days a week, only once or twice during the summer at a baseball game or the store, and no where else. Then after our eighth grade year, I think, it could have been seventh, something happened. I can't recall if her grandmother got too old and sick to keep them or if circumstances changed with her mother, but Connie left Milford and I never saw or heard from her again. When those old yearbooks showed up I saw old classmates' pictures and I remembered the ones not there. So, did you have a good life Connie Stubblefield? Did your mother show you how to put on make-up and dress like a lady? Did you finish high school and maybe college and get a good job? Did you have a career, a family, a divorce? Did you come to know Christ? Did you get to have little money and maybe travel some? Did you ever go back to Milford and did you look in your old yearbooks and wonder whatever happened to those people not in yours that you left in Milford? I lost track of Connie. No, that implies I tried to keep track. School ended. Connie left like every summer only when it started up again in August, she wasn't there and I never thought too much about it. That is a bit sad, maybe a lot sad. People drop in and drop out of our lives. They can be there for a long time and then gone. That's the way it is and we don't think much about it but if we stop long enough to think about it, we find something gnawing away at our souls leaving the impression that the way it is is not necessarily the way it should be. I suppose this gnawing is really a fear that maybe we are the ones who have been lost in life's shuffle. God, do you know where I am? Do you know what I've been doing? Do you remember my name? But God's word assures: O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Psalm 139: 1-3 Connie, I hope you lived and laughed and loved. Mostly I hope you know this God who knows you. He never lost you for a moment. Cos