He was just a little tyke when he first learned about the healing magic of a Bandaid and a kiss. Every little scratch would bring him running for mama’s TLC and “don’t forget the Bandaid.”
A preschooler, he raided the Bandaid box to keep his doctor’s kit well supplied. His scrapes often went neglected, but there were always plenty of the adhesive strips to treat his patients - be it sister’s doll, neighbor’s dog or mother’s prize plant. If it couldn’t be mended with a Bandaid, it wasn’t worth fixing.
A first grader, he soon learned that the school had a clinic well stocked in Bandaids. “They can put a Bandaid on it and make it all better,” he comforted a new friend with a broken arm.
With age, he toughened. His demands for Bandaids and mama’s kisses diminished. Only at night, upon being tucked into bed, he would hold a hurt finger up for inspection, a kiss and a Bandaid. It’s just started hurting,” he would explain. Funny how much more severe pain becomes just before sleep.
Each year brought new realizations. He learned that Bandaids protect blisters, cushion new shoes, cover a pimple. He also learned, sadly, that they do nothing for sunburn, sore muscles or a broken heart. Even a mother can’t mend a broken heart.
His world expanded when he went off to summer camp. Not one time did he mention any injury in any letter. If he hurt, he kept it to himself. And yet, his earlier training had a way of slipping through. For the envelope, short of glue came sealed shut with a Bandaid.
He’s almost grown now. It probably won’t be many more years before he’s spreading the magic of Bandaids on his own babes. He’s old enough to discredit such writings as these with an “Aw, Mom, you didn’t.”
But he did. For his latest letter tells of a broken window in his dorm room and how he fixed it until the maintenance crew can replace it. A wad of paper filled in the gaping hole, but the cracked pane in the window, he neatly mended with a strip of …Bandaids.
1983
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