Heaven-Sent: The Boy Who Couldn't Miss

By Gary Hopper

Shortly after World War II, a covert US agency was established to recover scientific records left by one of Hitler's top-secret programs. The dictator once dreamt of creating the perfect soldier but ran out of time as the war ended. The agency was directed to pick up where they Germans left off but with one huge difference: they were asked to scientifically create the perfect human being.

The agency achieved its goal. In 1950, the top-secret laboratory became the birthplace of the first American test tube baby. Over the next eight years, they eagerly molded their prototype into a unique creation they named Gabriel.

Per the plan to assimilate the youth into society, Gabriel was abandoned at the front door of an unsuspecting middle-class family. The scientists hoped Gabriel would be accepted into their home and would quickly acclimate into their lifestyle. The plan worked. The chosen family embraced the orphan as a heaven-sent answer to their prayers.

Maynard, the family's biological child, discovered his new brother was gifted with unimaginable abilities. For example, Gabriel had a photographic memory and could recite the entire Bible by the age of three. He had an indescribable talent to hear other people's thoughts and alter them. The youngster recorded the second highest IQ score ever achieved. He even demonstrated eyesight comparable with elite predatory birds. Because of his vision, Gabriel soon became a baseball phenom and the best pure hitter to have ever stepped into a batter's box.

After a work-related tragedy killed her husband, the wife relocated with her two sons from Clovis, California, to Portland, Oregon. It was a blessed opportunity to begin anew. Gabriel excelled. On the diamond, the youngster distinguished himself as a local hero by leading his team to a state championship. Off the field, a few kids attempted to bully him. Gabriel, a devoted follower of Christ, protected himself without sacrificing his beliefs.

Gabriel was valedictorian of his high school graduating class, after which he went on to play professional baseball in the minor leagues. He was a rising star on the verge of greatness when divine providence interceded.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891125971

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Part 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Part 2

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Part 3

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Epilogue

About the Author

cover.jpg

Heaven-Sent

The Boy Who Couldn't Miss

Gary Hopper

ISBN 979-8-89112-596-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89112-597-1 (Digital)

Copyright © 2024 Gary Hopper

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Acknowledgments

I'd like to acknowledge and thank my wife, Jean, for her unwavering support and encouragement throughout the entire process. Her insights were priceless.

I'd also like to acknowledge and thank my dear friend Bruce B. He provided professional expertise, a meaningful critique, and his feedback was insightful and beneficial.

Part 1

(As narrated by Maynard)

Then Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

—John 20:29

Chapter 1

The name Maynard can be found in the average baby-naming book. The owners of those ghastly books were, in my opinion, unimaginative and lazy. Even my dear parents weren't motivated enough to select my name without seeking assistance.

I burst onto the scene in 1950 when those how-to books became all the rage. There must have been a gazillion names to potentially choose from. If anyone had bothered to ask my opinion, I would have said my given name sucked and should have been reassigned to anyone whom my parents detested. Since I wasn't asked for my thoughts, Maynard became forever etched upon my birth certificate.

The truth of the matter was plain and simple. By kindergarten, I had painstakingly conditioned my teacher and fellow classmates that calling me Red was really cool and perfectly fine by me. Derivatives of my given name began to vanish. May-nerd or May-turd were no longer shouted indignantly in my direction. As a bonus, I no longer needed to defend my honor after school.

Parents back then were pretty much clueless how to raise a child. Maybe it was the trauma suffered during WWII and the start of the Korean War that disorientated them. They became reliant upon a noted subject matter expert to educate them on the essentials of effective parenting. Dr. Spock was their man. He became the prominent expert for everything baby-related. He was a trained psychiatrist and recognized trailblazer for teaching his methods for effective parenting. Lacking innate knowledge, those less prepared parents yearned to be taught the fundamentals. The ultimate goal was to prevent the untrained from mucking up those little ones' lives.

Dr. Spock enlightened his readers on how to effectively assimilate any new additions into the family unit, puppies and goldfish excluded. What did that mean exactly? The popular magazine Better Parenting described his must-read tutorial as a significant scientific breakthrough.

My parents, peaceful lemmings that they were, willingly followed the expert's advice with unfettered conviction. They desired to indoctrinate me into their way of life, sorta like brainwashing. Dr. Spock provided advice for coddling, burping, and even spanking. Spare the rod and spoil the child was not in vogue back in the day.

In 1959, my parents surprised me by unilaterally deciding to add to our family unit. I was not consulted. A kid named Gabriel appeared out of nowhere and eventually became my brother from a different mother.

In hindsight, the addition of the orphan turned out to be a blessing. Who would have thought? Gabriel was one in a billion and must have been heaven-sent. He soon became my legally adopted brother and best friend. The name Gabriel did not invoke ridicule or cause fights. It conjured the image of a hero with superpowers. His name must have been selected from a nontraditional baby-naming book known simply as the Bible.

I've considered myself blessed to have been a part of Gabriel's life from that very first day he arrived, though, truth be told, when he first appeared at our door, I wasn't in the market for a sibling or any other additions to our core family unit. Mom, Dad, Dr. Spock, and I were getting along just swimmingly. Well, perhaps I once or twice fantasized about having a puppy, but Dad was unwilling to make that particular investment in fulfilling my boyhood dream. He wasn't sold on the care and feeding obligations he'd need to commit to. Picking up poops did not make his bucket list.

Dad's unwillingness to expand the family unit got torpedoed with the appearance of Gabriel. Dad tried to talk my mother out of keeping the deserted boy, but she was determined to raise him as if she were his biological mother. The chief administrator at City Hall concurred and decreed she could get her wish. It didn't help Dad's cause when our pastor exclaimed it must be the will of God for us to keep the stray. Once the dust settled, Dad lost the tug-of-war and pouted for a few days to signify his painful surrender. He knew the cost of raising a second child would double the investment he originally conceded to fund. Interestingly, a well-connected peer from my school said if Dad asked for a divorce due to the possible addition of the new kid, the cost of the divorce would have far exceeded the cost of just keeping the new kid. So we kept the kid. The math worked in his favor.

My life before Gabriel was boring. We lived in a partially renovated farmhouse on a good-sized corner lot about five minutes outside the downtown area. It wasn't too far for me to bike to get a soda pop, but I mostly stayed near my neighborhood and did whatever the other kids wanted to do. Playing tag and hide-and-seek were two activities I enjoyed. Pretending to be doctor or patient was not.

When I wasn't chasing down a neighborhood buddy or avoiding being tagged, the modern-day television would have been a really neat diversion. Alas, we did not own any such technology. It was not acceptable entertainment in the eyes of dad. He believed all the shows on television were junk. I thought that odd because how did he know without watching any of them? Anyway, Dad said to me, Maynard, if it were your choice, you'd grow up to be like all the other mindless kids living around here, but I won't allow that to happen. He added, Those kids will grow up to become underachieving adults and a drain on our great country.

As an option to the boob tube, as Dad crassly referred to it, I was permitted to listen to his transistor radio. In our case, it was actually a homemade crystal radio receiver, which brought the miracle of sound waves into our home. Patience was the key ingredient. My penny-pinching father wasn't ready to make an investment into a state-of-the-art transistor radio, so he hand-built ours from parts he purchased from the local hardware store. For Dad, ingenuity and frugality were on opposite sides of the same coin.

Once in a great while, I stumbled upon a Saturday baseball game, which had a strong radio signal. Those afternoons were ripe with opportunities to create memories and dreams. The New York Yankees were America's team, and their games were more frequently broadcasted than most teams, which was fine with me. I would sit on the front porch swing and listen as if life or death hung on every pitch. I created the description of the game in my mind's eye and imagined its sights and sounds. I naturally rooted for the Yankees because that was the team Babe Ruth once played for back in the day. Prior to joining the Yankees, he played for the Red Sox. However, those idiots sold him to the Bronx Bombers. Regardless of who was actually winning any of their head-to-head game, I always hoped it would go into extra innings. A longer game meant more enjoyable listening.

I became infatuated with the game of baseball in kindergarten. I was introduced to it by my dad, who said it was his first love. Not sure how that made my mom feel, but I don't think Dad thought that one through. Dad had been a professional player who played Single A in the minor leagues for a few years until life led him in a different direction. Instead of continuing to pursue his dream of making it to the big league, he married Mom. She had been his high school sweetheart, which was a no-brainer. Saddled with his new responsibility, he chose to moth-ball the glove and cleats for a stable income with decent pay.

Dad's timing to change careers was fortuitous. In 1949, he snagged a choice post-WWII opportunity when he signed on to become an apprentice technician with Southern Pacific Railroad. That checked off the financially secure box of the newly married couple, and I was born nine months after their wedding. The ideal career Dad had once fantasized about was replaced with diapers and baby food. His loss of baseball glory was a long-lasting bitter pill to swallow, but I indirectly benefited from his passion for the game.

We lived in a thriving agriculture region known as the San Joaquin Valley located in Central California. The land was great for growing stuff but bad for local radio reception and even worse when using a no-frills home crystal set. Because we lived in an area where radio frequency strength was not a priority, good reception for listening to games was hit or miss (no pun).

We lived in the tiny town of Clovis. I'm talking zero stoplights and just one stop sign. Perhaps three thousand city folks in total and about the same number peppered throughout the vast rural area surrounding it. Despite the year-over-year double-digit growth in the county, there wasn't one Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise to be found. Fortunately, that soon changed. A year later, the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants migrated west and called Los Angeles and San Francisco their homes, respectively. It was nice to have two California teams, but the distance was too much to attend a game in person, per my dad.

When I wasn't attending school, I hung out with the other kids in my neighborhood who lived within a short distance by bicycle. Playing sandlot baseball soon became my number one activity. Mom was not enamored with my choice. She had a different path scoped out for her one and only son. Mom wanted me to become a railroad technician like Dad, though any career requiring a college education would have been acceptable to her. She made it clear that I would someday become a husband and father. I'd also have two children of my own. No pressure. I was about to begin third grade, and my entire life was already planned.

God loved my mother. I'm sure of that. Though his love did not steer Mom toward becoming more hands-off raising me. She was persistent to a fault and dead set I would grow up to become a charming young gentleman who would make the honor roll and be co-captain of the high school debate team. Was there even such a thing?

Making the baseball team was not a priority in my mom's life. Instead, I would naturally escort a homecoming princess to our school prom and eventually go on to marry her—my sweetheart. After high school, I would receive a scholarship from Fresno State University where my engineering degree would be the goal. Life would be set on autopilot. Even if my grades slacked a bit, I could always become a railroad technician.

Chapter 2

My father wasn't interested in my future endeavors so far as I could tell. He was not the touchy-feely type who embraced the finer nuances of parenting. He never took the time to understand how to raise me. That's not meant to be a knock on him—well, not really. Just the God's honest truth from my vantage point. Dad seemed angry a lot back then and would frequently comment to Mom but within my earshot, Something's gotta be wrong with that kid. I expected a cute-as-a-bug daughter. God sure didn't answer my prayers.

I never learned why my father felt that way about having a daughter over a son. Truth be told, I really didn't care. It wasn't like I would ever change to be something my dad preferred. I never spoke to anyone how it made me feel inside. Well, I did speak to God about it sometimes when my feelings got hurt. God was always there for me. He loved me just the way he created me.

Dad was a different sort of man than any other adult males I knew. He was a self-adsorbed old fart by the time he turned thirty-three years of age. For example, he drove a dilapidated sun-bleached '32 Ford pickup. It was his pride and joy because it was the only family vehicle, and he had dibs on it full-time, as Mom didn't drive back then. Dad enjoyed tinkering around with that inanimate hunk of junk and performed his own oil changes, swapped out the plugs, rotated the tires, and so forth. It was an uncomfortable ride, which rumbled about like a Panzer tank stalking its prey. It had a three-speed manual transmission shift off the steering column and a manual choke to regulate the intake of its nasty-smelling gasoline.

Bertha was the affectionate name Dad called his vehicle. It took him to and from work six days a week and into town for church on Sunday, followed by Mom's grocery shopping. That was the extent of Bertha's obligations, yet it somehow managed to rate high by my dad's acceptance list. Maybe it was the little girl he had always longed for.

As far as my education was concerned, I attended a recently opened parochial school near our home. It was an eight- to ten-minute bike ride, which wasn't too bad. We had twelve grades in total plus a kindergarten piled into a nondescript, irregularly shaped red brick building. It was two stories in height and was mostly known for its poor airflow. The only ventilation came from opening windows and praying for a friendly breeze. The bathrooms could have benefited from windows.

We were 230 students strong and the only Catholic school within a hundred miles in any direction. Most students were driven to school by their parents or carpooled with other families or picked up by any of the three mid-sized school buses. The latter cost the parents extra, so my dad vetoed that option. I was responsible for providing my own transportation come rain or shine. The cost savings was not reflected in my allowance, which I didn't get anyway.

It was my good fortune we didn't encounter too many rainy days in our valley, though the afternoon heat was a character builder, as Dad described it. He wasn't ever of a mind to give me a ride. As he explained it, Maynard, you need to toughen up if you hope to make it in the real world. I was worried I might just melt away before reaching adulthood. Whatever, Dad, was my thoughtful yet unspoken response. Uttered aloud, it would have gotten me the belt and a handful of Hail Marys.

The full-time teaching positions at Our Lady of Victory were exclusively staffed by well-educated nuns. They were imported from their home somewhere in Ireland. Those nuns of the Order of Holy Cross must have earned specialized education certificates in juvenile disciplinary tactics. They were formidable and relentless. Fear of corporal punishment was their not-so-secret weapon. Students had zero freedom and were forced to conform to the rules. The nuns' heavy-handedness felt un-American, but the school never claimed to be run like a democracy. We had zero voting privileges and the same amount of veto power.

The school operated on one simple premise: it was Mother Superior's way or the highway. With regular frequency, we heard scuttlebutt that the top nun unceremoniously gave the boot to a wayward youth. Off the school's property they went. The way our expulsion policy worked, the nun would give the convicted delinquent a dime to make a call from a pay booth located not too far off their property. That may have sounded unreasonable, but that was how she managed her domain. I heard from a reliable source that just one misstep and a kid would be expelled. There was never a second or third bite of the apple. No escalation process or appeals to a higher court.

Heaven help me, if I was ever booted out of school, I would have been in deep cottage cheese. One of my options would have been to attend a public school, which was a forty-five-minute bus ride from our house. That would have been way too long of a commute. A second option would have been to enlist into the military, but I had food allergies and didn't think the Marines would consider an eight-year-old. My third option was Covington Academy, which was a fifteen-minute bike ride door-to-door. The school also had twelve grades, but Dad didn't like it because they accepted all students regardless of race, creed, academic record, or family income. My dad wasn't abiding by the belief all people were created equal. He used to remind me I was privileged to attend my school because he spent good money on my tuition. He also reminded me to follow all the school's rules and get good grades.

I wasn't a teacher's pet by any stretch of the imagination. I followed rules when they made sense to me; however, not all rules carried the same weight in my eyes. For example, in second grade, I did not shoot spit wads from the empty ink cartridges of my fountain pen, nor did I pull Sally's hair and make her scream. I definitely did not ever try to look up a nun's black smock. Those infractions came with dire consequences.

My infractions were judgment calls left to the hierarchy's interpretation. For example, there was a time when we were playing kickball and I was supposed to stop mid-stride as the ringing bell signified the end of recess. I knew the rule but was in the heat of battle. It was asinine. Their rule did not permit any wiggle room for compliance. In the principal's mind, something was either right or wrong. The world I preferred was less prescriptive and more situationally fluid.

It sucked when I would get disciplined at school and then be punished at home for the same infraction. In addition to not obeying the freeze in place rule, I took exception to the concept of sharing with others. If I was going out to recess and had a ball in my hands, which I had retrieved from the ball closet, I did not look kindly on a kid trying to snatch it away from me.

My reaction to physical confrontation was always the same. I'd throw the first punch and then beg for leniency from the authorities. One hundred times out of one hundred times my requests were declined. It was preferred by the school to permit stealing and label it as sharing. I knew the parable in the Bible about giving a thief your cloak after they had stolen your coat. In my mind, the parable didn't apply to stealing a basketball during recess. My penalty was writing twenty sentences on the school chalkboard followed by five swats with the wooden paddle at home.

Truth be known, Dad wasn't supportive of me attending private school. Mom was the religious person of the two, and she made it clear her child would only attend private school. She said it would open doors to a better future and it was worth the sacrifices made to pay my tuition, costs for uniforms, etc. It was true, my future was brighter because of their sacrifices. However, to be fair, I learned in my religion class that Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice by offering his life so we would receive the gift of eternal life. That sacrifice seemed far more important to me than my parents' efforts, but for safety reasons, I kept those thoughts to myself.

Dad was exempt from fighting the Korean War. He had a hearing defect, which made him ineligible to serve. His hearing loss was congenital, and there wasn't anything the doctors could do to make it better. Mom was glad about his ineligibility to serve because she knew too many husbands, fathers, brothers who had already been selected to leave their families, and their return home was never guaranteed. I was somewhat glad Dad didn't go off to war. If he had, I wasn't sure how we would pay our bills and put food on the table. I didn't think Mom could have done it by herself, and I was way too young to start working for a job.

Life in California was really good compared to other places around the globe. That was the sentiment of Sister Alice. She reminded us we had drinkable water, healthy food to eat, and a sturdy roof over our heads. Our climate was mild, as we never had snow, and it didn't rain all that often. However, I thought our summertime really sucked. Mom said it was downright sweltering, and Dad didn't complain out loud because in his words, What difference would it make? I disagreed with him. I found a little whining about excessive heat created a cooling effect on my disposition. Regardless, I felt blessed to live where we lived and have what we had.

Dad was a man of few words and basically offered his opinion only when required by Mom. He preferred silence until he needed to remind me how lucky I was to have everything handed to me. He also liked to remind me I should have been a girl as I said. However, by second grade, I stopped paying attention to his abusive perspective. Unwavering, he possessed all the answers and didn't like wasting his breath on stuff he considered trivial. Anything which wasn't beneficial to him didn't make it onto his radar.

Playing baseball with the other kids in my neighborhood was the best part of that summer before third grade. The sandlot players didn't have an organized baseball league, but we managed to recruit a total of four teams with five players per squad. The kids were mostly heading into third grade and above.

Those four teams played against one another on a regular basis. I played second base for the team which became known as the Clovis Cubs. We were pretty good and won about the same amount as we lost. We didn't have uniforms or adult supervision at our games, which was okay with us. We didn't need hotheaded adults telling us who was safe or who was out. Most summer weekdays we played from dawn until it was time for dinner. It was for me the very best of times.

When I wasn't playing baseball, watching the other kids play, or listening to any game on the radio, I imagined my own baseball stories and would write them down. That may have sounded weird, but the baseball bug had bitten me really hard. Mom fretted it infected me, and she wondered if I would ever grow out of it. Dad didn't particularly care one way or the other. Since I wasn't a girl, my passion and dreams remained my own.

Playing with dolls or pretending to be in a beauty pageant were not activities that remotely appealed to me. Actually, I thought that would be creepy even by Dr. Spock's standards. Conversely, anything related to baseball was a blessing and one day would offer me wondrous adventures to anywhere outside Clovis. I used to fantasize about traveling by railcar around the country and being a baseball journalist writing about my first love. However, playing in the major leagues would have been preferable.

Alas, becoming a baseball player would never become part of my destiny. I was born with nystagmus, an uncontrollable rhythmic abnormal eye movement disorder. It made my sight fuzzy and meant my peripheral vision and depth perception were well below average. Because of my visual imperfections, becoming a professional baseball player or airplane pilot could never be in my future. I didn't care about being a pilot, though, and fancied myself being an average hitter and fielder who tried my best. Dad deflated my balloon when he reminded me in no uncertain terms, Maynard, you're eight years old, and your best playing days are already behind you.

Mom double-downed on squashing my dreams by continuing to downplay the sportswriting angle. She had bigger plans for me and had already predicted I'd make a fine breadwinner, husband, and father someday. To add to my misery, Dad offered his unvarnished perspective. Maynard, you can be anything you want when you are grown-up. A job like a ditch digger, mailman, or even a janitor if you are so motivated. He added, You can be any darn thing you want so long as it makes you happy. I wasn't sure what the heck he meant by that. It sounded squirrelly to me. Mom told me not to fret. It was Dad's way of saying he cared about me even though he hadn't actually said so.

Dad's other priceless advice was, Maynard, use protection and don't get any girl pregnant. Now I was still only eight years old and had no clue what the heck he was talking about. I asked Mom to translate, but she declined to speculate on his behalf and discouraged me from asking Dad directly for clarification. Per Mom, he was chronically tired because of working long hours and nonresponsive because his hearing was getting worse. Huh?

Mom concluded, Maynard, your future needs to include college. Your father and I didn't have an opportunity to attend, and that would never happen to you. You will be the first in the family to earn a degree. That was irrefutable and nonnegotiable.

In hindsight, it seemed counterintuitive that I would need a college degree to become a ditch digger. I didn't understand how a framed piece of deer skin would help me become a happy and responsible breadwinner. Bottom line, I temporarily surrendered to what Mom was feeding me because after all, she was literally preparing my meals, etc. She remained steadfast that a sports journalism degree would not be an option for her one and only son.

All this left me with two unanswered questions: I wondered if Dr. Spock advocated the tactic of circuitous logic to daze and confuse children to earn their cooperation? Second, did adults really believe their babble worked on kids?

One last thing about adults and discipline—I received the Sacraments of First Confession and Holy Communion toward the end of second grade. I naturally ended up confessing the same transgressions to the priest which I had already been twice punished for. The thoughtless process of re-addressing my missteps only heaped more consequences upon me. It seemed sadistic and punitive. Mom disagreed. She said those situations served as valuable life lessons. Dad mumbled about it being part of growing up.

Whatever.

Chapter 3

Gabriel was the mysterious boy without a last name. He was an enigma wrapped inside a paradox.

Gabriel was one month older than me, or so he had been led to believe. Other than the pinned note on his lapel, no other documentation was provided at his port of entry. He did not arrive with a birth certificate nor proof of being baptized. That was a downright head-scratcher, and I didn't have any other choice but to believe him. I noted from the onset Gabriel appeared convinced of his birth date, where he had been born, and that he'd been baptized. I never doubted whatever the kid told me because he had an aura about him which made me want to believe everything he said. I thought that was unusual because most guys my age were really good at spinning stories, and adults were even better at it.

Consensus placed Gabriel one month older than myself, and because of that, he was placed in third grade along with me. His placement caused an initial brouhaha from some of the girls as they thought the whole story was made up and that Gabriel must have been a runaway, an orphan, or an illegitimate child who had been abandoned. Why it mattered to them was beyond my comprehension.

I chose to give Gabriel the benefit of the doubt and would believe in him until he did something egregious to lose my trust. In my eyes, Gabriel was a wonderful addition to our family and became like a brother to me. Saying so out loud made it feel right.

Where we were close in age and in the same grade, that's where our similarities ended. Gabriel's skin was naturally toned, whereas I sported burnt skin with freckles. My eyes were chocolate brown as described by Mom, while my hair color was the intersection of orange and rust. Gabriel had sparkling blue eyes like a summer sky and blond wavy hair, which was longer than mine and not per our school's protocol. He looked like a hip young surfer dude without the surfboard.

Our differences didn't stop with the color of our hair or our eyes. I was an average height and body type, so said our family doctor and Mom. Dr. Spock concurred. My parents were average size, so it made sense that I would follow their lead. Gabriel was way above the curve. He could have rested his chin on the top of my head if he wanted to, but I discouraged him from trying.

A handful of girls who had formed an exclusive clique thought Gabriel was cute but that he belonged in a higher grade, like fifth or sixth. They unmercifully teased him for being so much bigger. To Gabriel's credit, he seemed unaffected by