A Bucket of Smencils: Goodbye to a Child

I’ve got a bucket of Smencils.

The scented pencils come in root beer, bubble gum, watermelon and so much more. Individually, they smell like manufactured childhood, like a pack of bright colored gum or a handful of candies in clear wrappers. Together, they smell like a pillowcase full of Halloween loot left in the back of your car on a hot day.

We will no doubt wind up keeping this bucket of Smencils, minus the few that my son will sell for his fifth grade fundraiser, just like his brother did last year. The problem is that the target audience for a Smencil is decidedly under age 14, and yet the kids aren’t allowed to sell them on the school bus or at Boy Scouts meetings or other places where children congregate. He can’t very well bring them to soccer practice, anyhow, to sell to other fifth graders who have their own buckets of Smencils at home, and he’s not supposed to sell door-to-door. So the bucket sits on our kitchen counter, bringing back vague memories of getting sick at a birthday party in kindergarten every time I walk by it.

And that’s fine with me. In fact, it’s downright wonderful.

So is the “Fart Piano” app on the iTouch, to which I was introduced while driving the soccer carpool home on Monday evening. It was mildly amusing when the child in the seat behind me began playing it, and downright entertaining when my son, the accomplished piano player, got a hold of it. He balanced the Fart Piano over the painting that had been drying in his lap since I picked him up at art class, the one the soccer players in the back seats of my mini-van deemed, “really awesome.”

We all laughed while he attempted to play “Ode to Joy” in farts. Then he gave the iTouch back to the kid in the seat behind me, who proceeded to scare the heck out of me by playing the Police Car Siren app. Startling at first, and then, funny. Soon, I was glad we were almost at his house.

And that’s fine with me. In fact, it’s downright wonderful.

While I’ve long admitted to being a 10-year-old boy trapped in a soccer mom’s body, this week especially all-things-kid are sweeter, and I don’t just mean the Smencils. They’re sweeter because last week, our neighborhood lost one of our children, Nicole, who died from complications from leukemia — her third battle with cancer — at age 12. She and her parents fought to the very end; hours before she died a week ago Monday, neighbors were desperately trying to help Nicole’s parents find a clinical trial to treat a fungus in her lungs. Soon after 5 o’clock, I got a text message from a friend: Nicole had died  in her mother’s arms at 3 o-clock, just as the middle school, her school, was letting out.

We went ahead with the fundraiser for Nicole’s family Saturday night, anyhow. The family ski night started just hours after Nicole’s funeral ended, and I waved to many neighbors, who skied on about two feet of fresh snow — an anomaly here in New Jersey that many people credited to Nicole. By the time the candlelight ski run came down the mountain under the full moon, we’d all said our good-byes to one of our own, to our child.

Childhood feels sweeter this week, even as the bitter taste of loss lingers in our mouths. Every carpool, every scout meeting, every basketball game, every diorama of Notre Dame in toothpicks. (Ours sat on the dining room table until it was due in French class this morning.) Every soccer practice. Every video game. Every silly app entertaining the kids in the back of our mini-vans. Every snow fort melting in our frontyards.

I’ve got a bucket of Smencils. And this week especially, it’s downright wonderful.