Page 163 - People & Places In Time

The Sound of Children
It’s a pleasant day, with the car window down beside me, I’m waiting at a stoplight in midtown Fresno. Becoming aware of the yelling and laughter drifting from the playground next to the road, I listen, thinking how happy the sound. There is nothing between each one and the other but the joy in their play. What ever their lives are about, it isn’t a part of this sunny, spring day on the playground.
More recently while sitting in my backyard patio, I listen to children swimming in their backyard pool just over the common fence between us. Their screams and laughter over the splashing doesn’t intrude on my otherwise quiet moment. The sounds from the parents, perhaps, but those of their children not at all.
In the past week I was sitting at a memorial service for the brother of a friend, a Korean War veteran. He had grown up as one of ten brothers and sisters, and I was told this was a close family and growing up was a happy time together for these siblings.
The service was a good one, much like so many I’ve attended lately. A proper send off to a good man. As the presiding minister was saying a final homily to those of
us seated in the church plaza the outside location for this gathering we listened quietly. I gradually became aware of a sound, that I am by now so familiar, that of children yelling and laughing. A pre-school is part of this church and the kids were in recess in the playground not far behind us. No music could have provided a better tribute in saying goodbye to a life lived well, accompanied by the joyous sounds of children just beginning their own lives.
The innocent noise in play provided by children is the most encouraging and beautiful sound in our world.
Journal entry ~ October 16, 2020
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Following two pages:
Yosemite Snow ~ November 2011