When the Bucket Returns: Childhood Pranks
I remember as a child, especially when the family gathered, there were always more children than you could shake a stick at.
When you put a bunch of boys together, they often got into mischief—usually by playing pranks on each other. Sometimes they would even gang up and pull one over on some of the girls in the group.
Sometimes that mischief involved a bucket. It could be filled with water, ice, dirt, worms, or anything else someone might not enjoy having poured over their head.
Of course, it was all in good fun, and the favor was soon returned in full measure when one least expected it.
Sometimes adult life brings similar moments, when it feels as though fate—or something else—puts you squarely in the crosshairs of a bucket filled with the unimaginable. It may not be as messy as those childhood pranks, but it can feel just as heavy when it lands on your head.
As children we knew the rules: get drenched, howl with laughter, and wait for the perfect moment to strike back. But these adult buckets don’t come with a return policy. Once they’re emptied over you, you’re left standing there wondering how to dry off when the water keeps coming from somewhere else.
For me, this past week felt exactly like that. I would wake up to a message or a call and feel the first cold spray hit. By mid-morning another drop would land, then another, until the whole week felt like standing under a faucet someone had forgotten to turn off. Even the good news from earlier in the month now felt strangely distant, like sunlight I could see but no longer feel on my skin.
After some wonderful, uplifting moments I had long chased and desired, each day that week brought news of another passing—first two musical friends, then a cousin and a coworker, then another musical friend, and finally a musical hero.
Each one chipped a little more paint from my surface, leaving my life a bit more exposed and my emotions raw to the touch.
When life turns on a dime and the hopes and dreams of what lies ahead are suddenly sidelined by an unexpected death, it’s sometimes hard to understand how one day everything can be on the right road and the next the path disappears into the fog and haze of grief.
Maybe the work isn’t to find the old road again, but to learn how to walk through fog without needing to see the whole path at once—trusting that the next step will eventually become visible, and that someone else might be walking it with us.
Find more of Randall’s writings in his books at the Store.
