get found, kid!

The other day I was reading another one of Fulghum's essays. It was about a kid who is good at hide-and-seek. He always hid too well.

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"As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been out there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, “GET FOUND KID! out the window. And I think I just scared him. It’s real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes.

A man I know found out last year that he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor and knew about dying and he didn’t want his family and his friends to suffer through that with him, so he kept it a secret. And he died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody… but privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn’t need them, didn’t trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn’t say good-bye.

He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. And confused about being found. “I don’t want anyone to know.” (He said) “What will people think?” “I don’t want to bother anyone.”

Everybody is hiding together...and pretty soon somebody laughs, and everybody gets found.

Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game of Sardines. In Sardines the person who is IT goes and hides and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide with him…and pretty soon, someone laughs and everybody gets found."