The need to help

We were nine years old kids in elementary school.

As such, we did actions, whether right, kind, or mean, without even realizing their impact.

It was a cold January day, and I was playing in the garden as always when I saw my friend D was missing. I couldn’t find him anywhere so I left the others to the game and started running in the garden looking for him. It took me some time before finally spotting him. He was in a small space along the wall and he wasn’t alone, he was with T, the classmate all of us found strange and used to be always alone.

I observed them and could see D talking with T, both of them with smiles on their faces.

The bell rang and all of us went back to class.

In the following days, I always found the two of them together, and in a few days I got curious and approached them.

“What are you doing?” I asked. All D replied was “Hey M, come listen to this”, getting my attention and making me listen to what T was saying.

The days passed and I started spending my breaks together with not only D, but T too, and I found myself having fun with both of them.

In 2 more weeks, February came, and 3 other classmates, who were friends of me and D, arrived and joined our new group, making it bigger.

Another month slowly passed by as our bonds grew definitely stronger. We certainly didn’t see T as another member of our group, after all it was a group that had formed years before, but we had no problem including him in our activities.

In March, T took the first step and invited all of us to his house an afternoon after school. D was the first to accept, and I obviously accepted as well, but 2 of the others also came and we passed our time playing in the garden and with videogames.

Later that month, D told me that he was invited to play tennis once together with T, and in fact D went with T, his brother and his father at a tennis court, and they all played together and had fun once again.

T started smiling and having fun way more and he seemed a whole different person not only to us who were part of the story, but to people who didn’t know the full story too. T’s parents thanked us for what we had done, and as kids, we didn’t even fully understand what they were thanking us for: wasn’t it natural to follow other’s choice? and be friends with others? In the same way, making fun of and excluding someone cause others did it too was normal to some of us. Most of us just did what we found normal, and only now we (or at least I) realize that following the crowd usually leads to bad, maybe undesired, results. In such cases, what leads to such results is our own choice, or rather, lack of choice.

In April, some of us were invited to a party by T and his family, and I don’t have clear memories about that day, but I’m certain both me and D were there.

Naturally fewer and fewer people made fun of T, as kids that age just mimic what they see others do, and even though most of them didn’t become friends with T, they weren’t completely excluding him anymore.

Time passed, our classmates changed in number and grew up as individuals, and in 2 years, middle school was there waiting for us. Classes were planned and we all ended up in different ones. Additionally that year, covid-19 arrived, so contacts were strictly limited.

We later found out that, sadly, he was made fun of again in his new class, but this time it wasn’t up to us and there wasn’t much we could do about it, if not hope that what had happened in our previous class would happen again. With someone supporting him, T could be able to bear that situation, and, who knows, maybe solve the problem.

As we lost contact, none of us have can possibly learn the full story and find out what happened next, but the focus of this story is supposed to be on the actions of those classmates who tried to help someone, whether realizing it or not, and succeded.

Thinking about it now, years after the events, it certainly didn’t just happen, at least partially, it was intentional. Those kids, driven by the natural instict to help which is originally part of our hearts, and the desire to have friends which kids always have, managed to help someone else, and they certainly earned his gratitude for it.