Chapter 36

I backed out of the garage past Roma’s stilled basketball hoop for over seven months before I realized it was time to pass it on to another young athlete. The deserted structured saddened me at every pass. In my imagination I could still hear the ball bouncing outside. I didn’t have to use my imagination to see the dents from missed balls, thrown too hard, and teenagers slamming into the garage door

Roma was always a natural athlete. He excelled in all sports. He loved to play sports, to watch sports, to talk about sports, and to read the sports section. The reading part often amused me with some of the pronunciations. Roma and Bruce would talk sports over breakfast, and Roma could hold his end of the conversation. I marveled at his knowledge of so many games and teams and players. I remember the little fellow, reading to Bruce from the sports section, something about the “At-lant-na” Braves. From that moment on, Atlanta became Atlantna for me. Interesting that Roma would spend some quality time in Atlantna years later.

Our neighborhood had its own yard sale site on Facebook. I started to post it there. But suddenly I had a strong impulse to post in on the Mount Airy (Maryland) online yard sale site with a much wider audience. Why?, I asked myself. It would be easier to post within the neighborhood and have pick-up possibly involve no more than rolling it down the street. But I’ve learned to obey those nudges.  

I posted my simple ad on a Saturday morning, and an hour later, Roma’s basketball hoop was claimed. The woman asked if it could be disassembled, for she had a small car. We had assembled it originally, I told her, so I assumed it could be unassembled. Bruce told me that it would be difficult to take it apart, so I told her she would need a truck. She reinforced that she wanted it, but couldn’t get it until Wednesday evening. I started thinking maybe this buyer wasn’t going to work out. But Bruce would be home then, so he could help us get it into the back of a truck.

I didn’t hear back from her until Thursday morning. Bruce wasn’t there to help us. I messaged her to ask if she had a helper. We had emptied the water out of the base, and it was laying on the ground. It was heavy. I knew because I had helped Bruce lower it to the ground slowly so it didn’t crash. It was too heavy for two women to hoist up on the back of a pickup truck, at least one in advancing years, and I don’t mean my new friend Angela. 

I messaged Roma’s friend in the neighborhood, and I put a plea for help, explaining my need, on our neighborhood Facebook page. No one responded.  

By the time Angela arrived with a borrowed truck, I was pacing, waiting for an offer of assistance, even a passing car. There were a few cars passing, but I could not bring myself to flag them down for help. She backed in and we had no option but to try to wrestle that tall and heavy framework into the truck bed by ourselves. I lifted from the ground as Angela pulled from the truck bed. Surprisingly, we got it up onto the opened gate with little effort. We pushed it in horizontal, back against the cab. But it was too long. A third of it stuck out the back. So I climbed in, and we wrestled it upright and then I sat on the base. Without being filled with water, the base was not heavy enough to support it upright. There I sat on the base, securing the weight, wondering what to do.

I had no choice but to ride in the back of the truck, sitting on the base, accompanying Roma’s basketball hoop for the ride to its new home.  Luckily Angela had told me she only lived five minutes away. I could do this. Then I had a thought.  “Are there many power lines across Main Street?” I asked Angela. We had both traveled Main Street many times, without considering the power lines overhead.

“Not many . . . I think.” Her answer was more of a question, realizing she had never given it a thought before.

“Just watch for them,” I requested as I gave the high pole beside me a nod. She agreed as she got into the truck and pulled out of my driveway, as the full height of the basketball hoop towered above me. As we passed cars, I realized it is probably against the law to ride in the back of a pickup truck. Being a rule-follower, I laid down to at least conceal the evidence. All I could see was the sky until we got onto Main Street. Then Angela slowed down to a stop, as we neared the first of too many power lines above us. She got out of the truck to gauge the inches-from-the-top of the pole of the hoop to the wire, and slowly inched forward. It was at that point I remembered, too late, that the pole was made to collapse to reduce the height, probably enough so it would have fit in the truck bed on its side.
 
From my vantage point, looking straight up a too-tall pole, it looked as if we would hit the wires above. I involuntarily stiffened my body with each near contact. I  would raise my head up a little occasionally to see where we were, and how much farther we had to travel. When we finally veered right onto her short road, I could breathe again.

Once in front of her house, Angela got out of the truck apologizing for the wires that were both more plentiful than expected, and too low to transport fully extended, regulation basketball hoops on the bed of a pickup truck. As we were lowering the precious cargo from the truck bed, I explained why I had mentioned the electric wires in the first place.

“I didn’t tell you why I thought of the wires, but my son died in December. He fell from a ladder after touching a power line above his head” 

The horror on Angela’s face immediately revealed her compassion. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I will pray for you.”

I thanked her, as we returned to the truck cab for our short ride back to my house.

After her mention of prayer, we began chatting about churches, and Bible studies. Then, I don’t remember exactly what prompted it, but I said, “My son was adopted from Russia.” 

I heard her inward gasp. And she said, a little louder than expected, “My son was adopted from Russia, too.” We talked fast the last couple of minutes of our ride, like two strangers who discovered a Secret together. We got out and I ran in to get her a copy of my first book, about how God had picked my Russian son, and curious and suspecting it was true that God had picked hers in a similar way. We hugged goodbye, for the present.

She added that although her son was only about to turn six he was very good at basketball.”

 Of course he was. Like Roma!

I would have other conversations with Angela about God.

If she had come Wednesday night, when Bruce was home, he would have miraculously maneuvered the unwieldy structure into the truck with a little help from us, without struggles. If I had simply remembered the level on the back of the pole, I could have easily lowered the whole backboard, reducing the height of the pole by almost half, my cool story would have dissolved. If a neighbor had come to our aid Thursday morning when Angela arrived, I might have never known the rest of the story. She would have retrieved the hoop with help, gone on her way, out of my life forever. If I had put it on our neighborhood yard sale site, like I started to, again, there would have been no shared connection, no evidence of God at work. Oh, how He loves us!
 

As I rode in the back of a truck that morning, looking up at the clouds in a bright blue sky (and power lines, and low hanging branches), something magical was brewing.  A little boy from Russia was about to have a birthday, and he wanted a full size, regulation basketball hoop.

God knew exactly where a broken-in, well-loved and presently lonely one could be found. As Roma was also about to celebrate his first birthday in Heaven!

Although there were still days when grief overwhelmed me, and I cried for missing Roma, some days I was comforted in the most surprising and joy filled ways.

 

Continue with Chapter 37