Mrs. Cathcart’s second grade class was dismissed at 2:35 p.m. on a postcard perfect day in Prairie Village, Kansas. Michael Beckstead purchased an ice cold Coca Cola at the Skelly’s gas station at the corner of Somerset and 75th. street. as the walk home began.
Michael’s friends, Tom and Mike, were in a hurry to get home and get changed for baseball practice that would begin promptly at 3:30 p.m… The boys reached the 2/3 mark which was the crest of a large hill on Falmouth Street. They took the shortcut that led behind Wayne Jingles’ house as Beckstead had a final swig of his Coke. He then began tossing the bottle high in the air and catching it just to show off.
As the boys neared Michael’s home, he flung the bottle ten feet higher than the previous tosses and decided to let it fall to the ground. How shocked he was when, with a sickening thud, it landed on the top of his head. He screamed……he cursed……he cried as his mother flew out the back door with a roll of paper towels. The blood had sprung like a geyser upon impact and Tom even had the red fluid on his t-shirt.
Eventually, Mrs. Beckstead stopped the bleeding and calmed young Michael down. She invited the boys in for Oreos and milk but Tom and Mike declined and raced home.
Fifty years later, Tom and Mike would have other bolts that seemed to just drop from the sky. Both would lose siblings suddenly in the prime of life.
There is no way to prepare for such sudden losses.
Like Beckstead, you scream…..you curse….and you cry.
And then you pray. Although the pain never goes away, somehow you cling to the thought that one day you’ll see them again.
What You’re Saying