Leo Sinclair

Maybe life is as happy as we make it!

           “The death of a loved one comes harsh to his friends. When life sees no care, no joy to be held, what becomes of it? How do those who hold it so dearly, so clearly to be? And yet it is fragile, easy to break, easy to make,  but even the smallest heart, fragile or not, be it young, be it old, can change your mind. It is not often that someone makes you think about your actions, makes you see the full consequences of your actions. I know that when Leo walked up to my desk on the first day of school he gave me such a persona as to believe that nothing was wrong in this world. He changed my mood that day when he smiled. He wasn’t like the rest. When he spoke, the mere collection of words he used inspired even the most challenged to work well. I had never guessed that Leo was troubled. I remember when I asked my students to write something that they liked about their peers. Leo left his page blank, with only his name on the top. When I asked him why he hadn’t done the assignment, he told me that he loved everyone for who they were. He said that there is nothing in this world that can change that. Everyone should know that they are the best person in the world, even if they don’t think it. Having this come from someone as young as he was at the time astounded me. I remember that now. When I heard that what Leo had done I was hurt. I slide down the wall and cried until my husband came home. And when he did, we both sat on the couch looking at the old yearbooks we owned. We looked at his signature at the bottom of the autograph page. It was so elegant, much too nice for a child. We cried for several hours and that night we fell asleep on the couch holding the dim memories we had of him close to our heart. Even now I feel these memories swelling up again, wishing to burst out and show their intensity. It is hard to understand how someone, anyone can leave this world. I was expected to write a goodbye letter to him, but I cannot. I will not, because I know that he is not gone, not from my heart. I will always remember him, even when others are telling me to forget, I won’t. I’m sorry……..” She ran off holding her hand to her face to hide her tears. Mrs. James left the auditorium in a hurry, her long black dress trailed off behind her in the wind. I did not understand her sadness. I had not left her. I was still here watching her, trying to talk . I yelled at her as I followed. I ran past Jefferson, and I passed Ryan, and Miranda, and Riley, but none of them seem to realise that I was there.

        When I attempted to leave the building I was stopped by the sound of my favorite music. I ran back to the room only to discover the slideshow of pictures, of when I was looking for Easter eggs, when I opened Christmas presents on Christmas day, of all these wonderful moments that I had. The lights flared up and another person walked up onto the stage, this one I did not know. “When I first met Leo, he was an infant, just a couple of weeks old. He had the biggest smile any child could make. I would not meet him again until another few years had passed, but when they had, he was huddled behind a couch, hiding from his father. He looked at me and he smiled. I could obviously tell that he had been crying. I told him that everything would be alright if he looked at me for a little while. I told him that happiness does not come from those around you, happiness comes from in here. I touched his heart. He laughed and at that time we could here in the room upstairs a single gunshot. I did not know how many he had heard before I arrived, but when I did hear the sound I swept him into my arms, ran out the building and fell to the ground. There I sang the song you just heard to him as we rocked back and forth until a police siren came….. I would not see the young man again until just a couple months ago. He did not notice me, but I watched as he smiled once again. This smile was, however, different from the rest. This smile was not sincere, forced almost, and the will he harbored in his eyes, the thing I believed made them sparkle was gone. I was worried, but when I read his paper on how a single action can change a person, I was surprised that he wrote with so much vigour, so much enthusiasm. My favorite quote from the essay goes as follows: ‘I truly believe that one day, someday, a single action of kindness, a single glance, a single smile can change the course that one person follows, but I do not believe that anyone has showed me this yet. I do not believe that life is as gracious as they once told me.’ I cried at this point, because he went against what I had told him. I am still worried that he is stuck because he does not realise this. Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot make a change. I promise you can. Leonardo did.”

        Another man walked up, this one I remembered more predominantly as a great inspirator. “When I first met Leo, he was sad, he told me that life was not how he was promised it to be. He confided with me that it was impossible to perform his mission if he could not see the better side of life. When I asked him what his mission was, he always changed the subject. During my travels I noticed that this was the only thing he seemed to completely hide from me. He asked for my help though. He asked that I give him the answers. Being a teacher I could just simply not do that. So I gave him a series of tasks to perform so that he can become a better person. I am now going to tell you these tasks, there are only seven altogether, and they go along quicker than you think…...The first task I asked him to do was to look for the good in others. I told him that for every bad thing he noticed he had to find two good things about that person to cover that up. I asked him to write this down every week. I expected him to do this for several weeks, but anyone can do this faster than they realize. If he did not do the assignment I chided him on not being the best person he could be, and when he did do what I asked him to do I gave him praise. The second task was to find the bad in people, an easier task than the first. The third was to have him look at both list and pick one that stood out to him. I expected him to really look at the list and be familiar with what he was looking at. The fourth task was to take that and to emphasize it, to make it the most important thing that stood out from them. I then asked him to emphasize if it was good and shred the idea if it was a bad thing. The fifth task I asked him to do was to write down everything that he now noticed bad about people. I asked him to do this for a week. When he came back the next week he handed me the list. I began glancing over the list, it was longer than when he first made the list, I asked him why it had been so? He told me that there were many things that he had not worried about the first time I had asked him to do this, but now he couldn’t help but see all of those things. I waited stunned that I had made him notice so much bad. I asked him to do the same with the good things. He came back with a list that was much the same as the second list of bad things I asked him to find. The sixth thing I asked him to do was take the list, all four of them, both the good and the bad, and to pick one good list and one bad list. He had a hard time with this. This was the hardest thing for him so far. Now I know why you may be asking why I had him do this, but you see I told him that he can only began to see why life hadn’t been what he had been promised when he could see both sides of the story, when he could realise that it wasn’t as good as he thought, but also, that it wasn’t as bad as well. When he came back to me the next week after thinking over the list, he had still not decided. I asked him why he hadn’t. I asked him why.

        ‘Sir, I don’t understand the assignment. You have asked me to pick one of these list randomly and with no reason as to why. You asked to go into the task with no idea what the outcome would be.’

        I smiled at this moment. I told him this, I said ‘Leo, you are baffled by what you do not know, and you are scared by what the future has in store, I can understand this. Leo when I asked you to do this, I had asked you to pick one at random because I wanted to see which one you would pick, I wanted to see if you would pick the ones I thought you would pick, and I could still be right, but I need you to realize that while there are always two sides to story, only you can decide which one to follow, only you can decide which one you believe. Only you can believe what makes it right, only you can decide which list makes you a better person, and only you can decide which one makes you what you don’t want. And only you can fix this.’ At this time he started to cry because, as he told me later, he had lost sight of what he was trying to do with our meetings. He came to me the next day with his choice. The next thing I asked him to do completely surprised him. I had cleared off my desk and had nothing but a box of matches there waiting to be used. I asked him to take the list had had picked and to burn it. I asked him to burn the papers right there, on my desk. At first he was reluctant, looking at me with too much worry, too much pain, as if I had asked him to do something that was beyond imagination. It became so hard for him that he would not actually do it, so I did it for him. I took the list, lit a match and held it at one end.” He did this as he explained it. “He let out a breath of air, and sat in the chair behind him. This was the sixth task I had asked him to do. The seventh and final task I asked him to do took him the longest to complete. I asked him to take the other two list and do two things. For the list of good things I asked him to compliment, to thank those he had written about. For the list of bad things I asked him to apologize to people for thinking about those things, for doing those things to them. That was the last time I was ever see Leo again, ever. He walked out of there with his head hanging down, and leaving the room with an empty sense, leaving me wondering.” He left the stage in a hurry. It was hard to see him tear up as I did. I didn’t know why he had told people about that. I thought it had been just for us just for me.

        The next woman to walk up was someone I did not know, but she seemed oddly familiar. “Leonardo Sinclair lost hope from our world. He was a sad young man and is gone from this world much too soon. Before I can tell you what led Leo to leave us, I must first tell you about how he came to me, how I raised him, and how he finished his mission.