Hand-in-hand, brothers all

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

A few days before Christmas I saw them walking along the street near the viaduct. It was sunset. The sky was red. The trees were black. There was no sidewalk and no other pedestrians except these two young boys. They were brothers, you could tell. They had the same straight, sandy hair. They wore the same knit stocking caps and the same loose-fitting jackets, only in different sizes, and they walked in the same loping way.

One was about 12 and the other 5. The older boy walked nearest the street and held the younger boy's hand. He kept a half-step ahead, not pulling, just leading the way. The bigger boy carried an empty newspaper sack over his shoulder. The little one carried nothing. It seemed he'd walked the route on a cold December afternoon simply to be with his big brother.

Maybe it was because it was the Christmas season, or maybe it was the setting sun that highlighted the moment. But the image of those boys didn't disappear when they did. I looked at them for the final time through the rear-view mirror. They were walking side by side and the older boy had his arm draped around the younger one's shoulder. By the time the boys reached home they may have been quarreling. No doubt they've argued since and will again. But the moment I glimpsed held no trace of grievances to come. It was a perfect moment full of perfect love.

A woman who is in her 80s went to her doctor. Nothing unusual about this. She visited her foot doctor. Last week it was her eye doctor, the week before her cardiologist. Her calendar, which used to hold dates for dinners and visits with friends, is now red-inked with physician's names. She's had carotid artery surgery, open-heart-surgery, multiple eye surgeries. She is blind in one eye, but she still has the other, she says. She can't drive anymore, but she has people who drive her. She doesn't get around as much as she used to, but she still gets around. She is spunky, indomitable. Tuesday a doctor talked about amputation. He didn't bring up the subject. She did. Her toes, which he has been treating for more than a year, aren't healing. There have been infections and constant pain. What if they won't heal, she asked. What then?

When he said "amputation," she thought, okay, I can live without my toes. But it wouldn't be just her toes, he explained. It would be her leg below the knee. This woman, who fears little, who has already lost parents, friends, husband, youth, good health and most of what she ever had, carried the doctor's words home and took them to bed, where they made war in her head all night long. In the morning she placed an overseas call to a cousin she hasn't seen in years. This cousin had a leg amputated in July. To her surprise, she found her cousin at home, living alone, in her own house, walking with a prosthesis - and in great spirits.

The cousin soothed the older woman's fears. She said she never felt better in her life. She said the operation was done before she had time to think about it, that she was in rehab before she knew it and walking sooner than she could ever have imagined. "It'll be alright," she said over the lines, across thousands of miles. "I'm fine. I'm doing great. You'll be fine, too."

A "Chin up. You can do it." An "I understand." A small hand in a bigger hand. An arm around a shoulder. Another ordinary moment full of ordinary love. The image of the boys returns, walking together, there for one another. Brothers. Friends. Companions. As are we all.