skybaby

i swiped this from the webiste which was set up to honor the memory of, and memories created by and with, our friend patrick. ladies and gentlemen, i give you “skybaby.” jeff gay submitted this classic. it is taken directly from a letter patrick once wrote to him.

enjoy.


"Once when i was younger like 12 or something I was a jr. counselor at this soccer camp in Massachusetts and I was standing out in this field jumping up and down on this piece of wood that was laying across this big log like a teeter totter. I was standing with my back to the wood which made a cool sound when I jumped backwards on it like “dannanannannna” and I was zoning out, staring out at the field. Suddenly I saw a child falling from the sky. I couldn’t believe it. It was a 3 year old falling from like 50 feet up and it landed directly in front of me. I ran over to it and it was fine. It just looked up at me a little dazed. I looked up in the sky and there were no planes or trees or anything the kid could have fallen from. I was truly amazed. I heard screaming from the parking lot and a woman, the kid’s mom i guess, was running and screaming towards us. She pushed me aside and grabbed the skybaby. The kid started crying like crazy and the mother was screaming at me. Apparently I had launched her child when it crawled away from her over onto the wood i was jumping on. I felt a little disappointed as she walked away. It was my first encounter with something totally mysterious and within moments it was taken away from me. Even though the kid was fine I was still fired from my position as jr. counselor at the soccer camp. I don’t think i cared as much about losing the job as I did about losing the mystery of the skybaby. "