My children have endured the unspeakable – a 7.8 earthquake
in a third world country. Their
apartment and their business fared much better than most. The team with whom they served came to an end
with a literal “bang”, their employees have lost livelihood for the time being,
and many of their neighbors and friends have suffered more personal loss. Their city is in chaos with people living in
tents outside and afraid to go back into their compromised homes and
businesses. Many of the buildings in the
city will most likely have to be torn down.
Historic sites have crumbled.
Tourism has bottomed out with the avalanches experienced on Mt. Everest
due to the recent quakes. Home for them
may never again be the same.
My grandson, Ajay is four years old. When he got off the plane after evacuation,
he was clutching the body of a yellow toy passenger jet with no wings. The tail fins and also the main wings had
been broken off. Lest you think
differently, it had not lost its wings due to the massive destruction of a
natural disaster, but due to the natural disaster of a four-year-old boy’s
play. I pondered it. He had a firm grasp upon this fuselage and
one knew it must be precious – for he had not thrown it aside nor left it behind
as they began their long journey to the United States. (I dare not say “home”,
for he has already corrected my erroneously alluding to the US as his family’s
home. There is no doubt – Nepal is
home).
Why would he have kept it?
Surely, knowing that he has crossed the ocean on such a plane not less
than 8 times in his four and a half years, he is aware that the main component,
which would enable this plane to fly, was missing. It was a broken toy.
He had a couple of other nice planes that were whole and
complete, yet, he carried this small crayon-shaped piece of tin, across the
ocean as one of his choice toys with which to play.
One day, when all was quiet and he was having “down time”, I
observed his intense personal playtime.
He had all of his cars lined up as always and had created a masterful
airport out of blocks. The planes were
docked at their gates. The cars and
planes moved at his will. As I glance
over my computer, I could see the broken plane lying on the ottoman airport in
front of me. A finger driven truck
rolled over to the plane under Ajay’s keen supervision. In a soft voice, not meant for by-stander’s
ears, he said in his best ‘truck” voice, “OK, now we have to move this broken
plane over here to get fixed.” Ah-ha! I had a great revelation and a great
application! The broken plane was not
only cherished, but could still fulfill the purpose for which it was intended! It was made for the purpose of play and even
in its broken state, it could still be played with.
I began to think of what I had previously pondered in
broader terms. What if we treated people
like Ajay had treated his plane? He
could have thrown it away when it became quadriplegic, in its own way. When the first wing broke off, really even
then, it was useless as a toy plane. As
it became more and more damaged, he could have thrown it into the bottom of the
pit of broken toys and never played with it again. When scurrying around gathering the most
precious items to evacuate a devastated country in a possibly compromised
apartment with the ground still shaking violently moment by moment, he surely
could have overlooked this already shattered toy. Side by side with the complete and whole
airplanes and other precious treasures, the fuselage went into the
backpack. And now, he was using the
airport crew of his own making to support and fix the yellow passenger plane,
which was broken. There was no doubt of
its beauty and usefulness!
Later, I took that little yellow body, got out my scissors
and some black foam board, drew my best idea of what an airplane wing might
look like and resorted to assembly with my trusty hot-glue gun. It wasn’t perfect and we had several repairs
that had to be done over the course of a couple of weeks, but that airplane was
now fit to fly in any little boys imagination!
