Thomas Bender can imagine how much thought 7-year-old Shawn Bennett invested in Halloween this year.
Perhaps the Oxford boy chose precisely the right costume to charm his neighbors into an extra handful of chocolate. Probably scouted out the neighborhood and sketched a map to maximize his take, too.
This was a budding businessman, you see.
“My daughter, she’s 18 now, used to shovel the walkways to try to make a few bucks,” Bender recalled. “Shawn looked at her and decided he wanted to help. He got the money thing down pretty quick. I’m sure he said to himself, I can get a few candy bars out of this deal.'”
Shawn’s innocent entrepreneurial skills are gone today, leaving friends from two area communities, and any of us who can’t comprehend bad things happening to good people, wondering why.
Fire destroyed the family’s trailer at Oxford Pines Trailer Park early Tuesday morning. Shawn’s parents, Kathy Bennett and Neil Gephart, and his 11-month-old sister, Andrea Bennett, narrowly escaped. Neighbor Raymond Reece is credited with rescuing Andrea from her crib and saving the girl’s life.
Wayne Hatch, a neighbor, performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Shawn. He was pronounced dead at nearby Stephens Memorial Hospital.
Revving a chopper
As it turns out, Shawn’s brief life left an impact beyond his immediate family and circle of friends at Oxford Elementary School.
When word spread to Lisbon, where Shawn lived with his grandmother for three years before recently moving back to Oxford, Bender described a close-knit group of mobile home owners behind Spring Street as “devastated.”
To them, Shawn was a little mascot, a breath of youthful exuberance.
“I’m speaking for all of us,” said Bender. “We all feel terrible and we’re all going to miss him.”
They’ll miss his smile and his energy. Shawn lived to run and play, loved to pick the brain of any adult within earshot and relished every opportunity to pretend that his electric motorcycle was a Harley-Davidson.
According to Bender, Shawn’s every excursion into the narrow road serving the mobile homes was a neighborhood watch. Sometimes, he was the only motorist who obeyed the 5- miles-per-hour speed limit.
“As far as he was concerned, it was the real thing,” Bender said. “That was one of his biggest thrills. A lot of us who live here have motorcycles. I remember him saying, See, I’ve got one, too.'”
Bender is originally from California, but he’s lived in Lisbon since the April Fool’s Day flood of 1987 and wouldn’t trade the camaraderie there for beachfront property.
Kid-friendly place
Most families in the trailer court, he said, were friends before they became neighbors. If they started out as strangers, it never took long to catch up.
Chatter and sidewalk chalk are the norm there. Kids come and go. But Shawn left an impression.
“He was such a friendly kid. Always happy. Always had a lot of questions about what was going on,” Bender said.
Sudden death is no respecter of persons, but the way we respond to it as neighbors and news people doesn’t afford everyone equal footing.
Actors, singers, politicians and people who build businesses and other big stuff rate a high degree of reminiscence. We tend to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.
Children get small funerals and short obituaries. It’s tough to talk about unfulfilled potential. Tough to talk, period.
“I haven’t talked to his grandmother yet. She was wonderful with him,” Bender said. “They were really, really close. She took great care of him.”
The village that raised this child won’t see the fruits of its labor. If we adults fail to properly acknowledge his passing, however, we’ll miss a priceless lesson on how to conduct our own lives.
Said Bender: “Shawn brought a lot of joy to a lot of people.”
Kalle Oakes is the Sun Journal’s columnist. His e-mail is koakes@sunjournal.com.
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