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My kindergarten romance that haunts me to this day
Remembrance of a first love
Susan Beth Lehman
My first love, Stevie, killed himself— a drug overdose, either by accident or accidentally on purpose. About a year before his own death, Stevie killed a small child while driving, and eventually it killed him.
I heard about the accident a few years after it occurred, when I was about 21. The news of his death reached me a couple of cities later, ten years after I had last seen Stevie, and 15 years since I had loved him. Now, too many decades after hearing the news, Stevie's death still haunts me like none other.
We met on our first day of kindergarten: The Little Country School in San Antonio, Texas. We fell in love crouched on the floor while coloring Halloween costumes on the paper bags that dry cleaners used to cover suits and dresses long before they discovered flimsy plastic.
Too much kissing
We were almost kicked out of The Little Country School for kissing. The school's rules stipulated that we were allowed to kiss when we greeted each other in the morning and when we departed in the afternoon. We sat next to each other and held hands, and at Easter he gave me the prize he won for finding the most eggs.
Eventually I had another crush or two. Wouldn't it have been nice to tell that story at some 20-year high school reunion? But Stevie didn't make it to his ten-year.
We broke up by first grade. Apparently, that summer Stevie decided that he hated girls.
Our elementary schools were located in the same small school district, so we would have met up again in seventh grade. But in the ensuing years we saw each other once a week for Sunday school at Temple Beth El. And every week I felt his embarrassed, hooded-eyed avoidance.
Shy avoidance
No one else in our Sunday school class had attended The Little Country School with us, so there was no chance of idle gossip from the others about what a hot and heavy couple we'd been. Just the fact that I knew what I knew forced Stevie to sit in the farthest row from my seat. Even at age six, I had complex feelings of hurt and understanding.
Stevie didn't look at me, at least not that I could catch, or utter any words to me until sixth grade, when hormonal kidding between the sexes was starting to bud if not bloom. Yet there was too much history between us for the joyous teasing, because when we were five our feelings were real.
I knew that, and I think he did too. I would catch him looking at me, and he would smile shyly and turn away.
Vietnam and drugs
Stevie wasn't the first person I knew who had died. At that time the Vietnam War was starting to wind down. Everybody knew someone from high school who'd been killed in the war.
Those were the drug years, too, so everybody knew someone who had OD'ed. And of course there are people I've known and laughed with more recently and never will again. Cancer and heart attacks are becoming familiar to my generation. My parents died. The child of a friend died tragically. I lost a child of my own through miscarriage. But nothing was like losing Stevie.
Reunions are organized not just to see who has aged, gained weight or gone broke, but also to reclaim the pieces of ourselves that have fallen away. Now I live in an area where people haven't moved all that much. They seem to attend some family, high school, college or business school event every three weeks. They go off to the shore with siblings, cousins and lifelong friends.
Outsider at the reunion
As an outsider, I see how wonderful and terrible it is. The continuity of breathing and growing together; the blinders to outsiders' needs. Reunions enable us to breathe with our whole lives and return temporarily to the place where we were— where we belonged, whether we knew it then or not.
I don't know if Stevie stayed friendly with our Sunday school crowd— the kids I would have reconnected with after sixth grade and through high school. Our family moved before then. But I would have gone to Stevie's funeral to grieve his loss, to tell his mother how much our kindergarten year meant to me, how much I wanted to know him again, how much I wanted to laugh with him about that time long ago, when we were five years old and in love— how genuine our feelings were when the road ahead of us was still so long, so long ago.♦
To read a related article about reunions by Dan Rottenberg, click here.
I heard about the accident a few years after it occurred, when I was about 21. The news of his death reached me a couple of cities later, ten years after I had last seen Stevie, and 15 years since I had loved him. Now, too many decades after hearing the news, Stevie's death still haunts me like none other.
We met on our first day of kindergarten: The Little Country School in San Antonio, Texas. We fell in love crouched on the floor while coloring Halloween costumes on the paper bags that dry cleaners used to cover suits and dresses long before they discovered flimsy plastic.
Too much kissing
We were almost kicked out of The Little Country School for kissing. The school's rules stipulated that we were allowed to kiss when we greeted each other in the morning and when we departed in the afternoon. We sat next to each other and held hands, and at Easter he gave me the prize he won for finding the most eggs.
Eventually I had another crush or two. Wouldn't it have been nice to tell that story at some 20-year high school reunion? But Stevie didn't make it to his ten-year.
We broke up by first grade. Apparently, that summer Stevie decided that he hated girls.
Our elementary schools were located in the same small school district, so we would have met up again in seventh grade. But in the ensuing years we saw each other once a week for Sunday school at Temple Beth El. And every week I felt his embarrassed, hooded-eyed avoidance.
Shy avoidance
No one else in our Sunday school class had attended The Little Country School with us, so there was no chance of idle gossip from the others about what a hot and heavy couple we'd been. Just the fact that I knew what I knew forced Stevie to sit in the farthest row from my seat. Even at age six, I had complex feelings of hurt and understanding.
Stevie didn't look at me, at least not that I could catch, or utter any words to me until sixth grade, when hormonal kidding between the sexes was starting to bud if not bloom. Yet there was too much history between us for the joyous teasing, because when we were five our feelings were real.
I knew that, and I think he did too. I would catch him looking at me, and he would smile shyly and turn away.
Vietnam and drugs
Stevie wasn't the first person I knew who had died. At that time the Vietnam War was starting to wind down. Everybody knew someone from high school who'd been killed in the war.
Those were the drug years, too, so everybody knew someone who had OD'ed. And of course there are people I've known and laughed with more recently and never will again. Cancer and heart attacks are becoming familiar to my generation. My parents died. The child of a friend died tragically. I lost a child of my own through miscarriage. But nothing was like losing Stevie.
Reunions are organized not just to see who has aged, gained weight or gone broke, but also to reclaim the pieces of ourselves that have fallen away. Now I live in an area where people haven't moved all that much. They seem to attend some family, high school, college or business school event every three weeks. They go off to the shore with siblings, cousins and lifelong friends.
Outsider at the reunion
As an outsider, I see how wonderful and terrible it is. The continuity of breathing and growing together; the blinders to outsiders' needs. Reunions enable us to breathe with our whole lives and return temporarily to the place where we were— where we belonged, whether we knew it then or not.
I don't know if Stevie stayed friendly with our Sunday school crowd— the kids I would have reconnected with after sixth grade and through high school. Our family moved before then. But I would have gone to Stevie's funeral to grieve his loss, to tell his mother how much our kindergarten year meant to me, how much I wanted to know him again, how much I wanted to laugh with him about that time long ago, when we were five years old and in love— how genuine our feelings were when the road ahead of us was still so long, so long ago.♦
To read a related article about reunions by Dan Rottenberg, click here.
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