One day after school Joe was met by both of his parents.

Joe ran up to his parents and gave them both a hug bear hug.

Joe was over four feet tall and over one hundred pounds to his father’s seven foot frame.

The parents had a feeling that their son was a giant and would one day dwarf the both of them. Joe was four foot tall at four years old and strong as a small ox.

Joe’s parents were too poor to afford even an old junk heap of a car, so they walked everywhere they went.

McDonald and his family were in extreme poverty but they did not stop them from having happiness and joy.

How could this possibly be? How could they be happy with next to nothing?”

McDonald was taught by his mother and his late father to be happy with what God had given them and not be ungratefully since they was always some person worse off than they were. Having so little in this life would mean that they could expect something truly better once they leave this life for

the life that they would have in heaven one day.

Joe asks,”Momma, Why do you have a picnic lunch in your hand?”

Wendy smiles,”You will have to wait and see!”

Joe begins to grin from ear to ear.

#

The family of three had started to walk through the neighborhood for miles. The family was poor so they had to learn to walk for several miles in a single stride. It helped the family stay fit as possible and not gain weight. The family had to eat foods that were often not very healthy to eat and were the worse graded foods. They had a lot of food to eat but they were given the food that people

outside the ghettos would not eat.

Most of the people in the ghettos had not ever eaten anything any better so they never knew any different.

The small family was walking together while holding each other hands while walking on the broken sidewalk. Joe was in the middle, his mother to his left and his father to the right. Cars was very scarce in the ghetto so they could walk side to side.

In the ghetto people only exited their small neighborhood only for work, so Wendy and McDonald were on their guard for danger. The ghetto was terrorized from time to time by thugs. But they had not seen any gang members today, so they continued on with their walk.

#

Joe had walked for several miles and was started to tired when his parents begin to laugh.

Joe started to get fussy and was started to slow when he saw in the distance something.

Joe yelled,”There is a playground! Mom! Dad! It is a playground!”

Wendy spoke,” We had wanted to take you here because it was our playground when your daddy and I was little kids.”

Joe smiles and says,” Really? It looks cool, Mom!”

McDonald spoke,” We did not take you early since we had to make sure it was still here and that it was even safe to go. It took me a couple months to find these place again and make the safest path.”

There was an old park bench still in a good condition and not covered in trash. Wendy and

McDonald put a large table cloth over the table and placed food and drinks on one side of the table.

They held their hands and prayed. They immediately started to chow down, since all three of them was hungry.

#

Joe begins to play on the abandoned playground and he became happier than a lark.

Wendy speaks,”I just can’t believe the old playground is still in one piece!”

McDonald laughed.

Wendy spoke,” What is so funny?”

McDonald looked over to his wife with an elephant grin.

McDonald spoke,”It was broken down but all the parts was still here though! It was like it meant to be put back together!”

Wendy spoke,”That is why you were gone so long! I had believed that it was just because that you could not find it, but you just trying to fix it.”

McDonald looks at his wife with a tender look that pierced through to his wife’s soul.

Wendy begins to cry and is held by her husband while still sitting at the picnic table.

Wendy cries into her husband’s shoulders and is comforted by McDonald with a gentle

embrace.

Wendy whispers in his ear to avoid scaring Joe who was in his own little world,”All our friends that had played with us here are died. We are the only two that are left.”

Joe and Wendy’s school mates had all died due to gang violence or overwork. It was a burden that the couple had carried over the years, since all their old friends died before they were thirty years old.

McDonald spoke,”I know that, so I thought that I should rebuild this place. I can not take back what troubles we had to go through but I can help us remember the good times! We have to remember how much fun we had and the tender love was shared with them!”

Wendy looked up into the eyes of her husband and discovers that McDonald was crying too. McDonald pulls out his hanky and dries out the eyes of his wife.

The couple remembers where all their friends played on the old playground.

Joe was enjoy playing on the playground but it was starting to get dark.

The boy hears for him to stop playing and return to his parents.

Joe thought,”I am having so much fun why would I want to stop! It is not fair!”

The young boy got all huffy and mad.

He speaks,” Let me go down the big slide just one more time!”

Wendy yells up to Joe,”Okay, hurry! We have got to go!”

Joe jumps down the slide and runs over to his parents.

They all hold hands as before and begin to walk home.