A Childhood Friend

I got to thinking about Ronnie tonight.  He was a childhood friend who had muscular dystrophy.  When I first met him at 9 years, he was fine.  Then we kids noticed that he was walking around on his toes.

Then he started to fall over.  That is a scary thing for kids.  You know, when things don't work right...

I don't remember perfectly now, but I think he was a couple years older than me.  His problems grew until he couldn't leave the house anymore.  I used to visit him and we would play Monopoly.  He enjoyed that.  He had a bed with a lifting device eventually.  It allowed his mother to change his sheets and clothes.

I don't understand the details of MS, but there came a day when he didn't understand Monopoly anymore.  So I moved the pieces around the board  and made up stories about his piece having fun on the board .  Toward the end, he couldn't even move the hotels, so I did it for him.  He was pretty much "out of it" by that point.

Then we moved away.  I wrote him some letters at 14 years old.  One day I got a letter back.  His Mom said he had died.  That was a terrible shock.  My cousin Bobby had drowned 2 years before, now Ronnie was dead.  I didn't understand death then very well. Kids were protected from that stuff when I was young. 

No purpose to this, just a remembrance from many years ago...  I think it was about this time of year.

Remembering you, Ronnie Richards...