One More Day

by Donna Poole

If I could be a child again, I think I’d pick the summer I was ten and my sister Mary was nine. We’d just moved into the tin box we called home, a ten by fifty-foot trailer, where, like the old joke says, you had to go outside to change your mind.

Mary and I didn’t mind that our inside space was cramped; we were explorers. and the big, wide outdoors was a new adventure waiting for us every day.

Summer stretched ahead of us forever. We coasted down hills on our bikes way too fast, feet off the pedals, arms stretched wide, yelling “Wah Hoo!”

No one we knew was old, or sick, or dying. Those were just things you read about in books. We were far from rich; sometimes we were still hungry after a meal, but we weren’t starving. We knew nothing about the sorrows of the rest of the world. We were just two little girls enjoying the peaceful innocence of a childhood that’s gone forever.

We didn’t have television, though if we stood on tiptoe in just the right spot in our yard, we could see a tiny bit of the little black and white TV in the neighbor’s tin box.

We walked down the road to the abandon barn to see if there were any kittens we could coax to come home with us.

The foothills of the Adirondack mountains whispered our names, and we couldn’t resist, especially when the wild berries ripened. Mornings were usually cool, so we wore sweaters over our shirts. We hiked down the backroads until we found a field without a fence, or a fence we could cross, and then started climbing up into the hills. Once we found a creepy abandoned boy scout camp and imagined all kinds of scary ghost stories. Often, we tried to walk like the native Americans we admired, one foot in front of the other without making a sound. Then we found the treasure we were hunting, blackberries as big as our thumbs. We ate almost as many as we picked, but we were careful to get enough for Mom to make her blackberry pies.

Soon the hot sun would say it was time to take off our sweaters. We’d tie them around our waists and keep picking. We’d stop for lunch, sit in a grassy field, and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We’d blow fluff off dandelions and make a wish. If we wished hard enough, maybe our big sister, Eve, could magically come home for the weekend. We’d pick the widest blades of grass, stretch them tightly between our thumbs, and practice our whistles. Then we’d roll up our sweaters, put them under our necks, and watch the white clouds hurrying to places we could only imagine. Sometimes we’d fall asleep.

Buckets full of berries we’d head home. Mom’s delicious pies would be worth every scratch on our tanned arms. And our little sister Ginny’s blue eyes would dance with delight and berry juice would stain her tongue purple.

On sizzling hot days we’d bike to a place where the creek widened under a bridge and jump into a cold pool of water. Or we’d follow a shallow creek for a while, watching dragon flies and water bugs and keeping an eye out for snakes.

Fireflies lit up magical evenings, and bedtime between clean sheets gave time to dream until morning. Surely, something wonderful would happen again the next day. Breakfast over, chores done, it was time to adventure again.

We played games with the boys who lived in the other tin cans; no girls except us lived in the trailer park. I can still feel the smack of the ball hitting my hand; who had baseball gloves? Not us! I remember the satisfying crack of the bat hitting the ball, the tingle from hand to elbow, and the exhilarating race around the homemade bases. Whatever the game, Mary and I tried to outrun and outplay all the boys, and we usually succeeded.

It was a magical summer. We lived in shorts or jeans and grew brown and brave. Once we chased all the boys out of the playhouse with a mouse. Oh, we were a force to be reckoned with, or so we thought, and as tomboyish as two girls can get. We wore dresses only for church.

When Uncle Tom came to visit, we heard him worrying about us to Mom. “You need to do something about Donna and Mary Lou. Those two girls are growing up like wild Indians.”

We grinned at each other. It was the best compliment we could imagine.

Yes, I’d love to be ten again for one more day. I’d grab Mary’s hand and we’d race down our back country road and feel the wind against our faces. We’d imagine many things, but it would never occur to us that those days might have an expiration date. We were sisters; we’d always adventure, and be young, happy, and together. And one day, that’s exactly what we will be, all four of us sisters, together forever in heaven.