initially lifting each picture out of the flowered box layered with dust, i handled everything with care. gently. i was sure this was in earnest and innocence, nothing would come of it. i’d find a few images and all would be okay, just a few memories rekindled for a few minutes then i’d let go. easily. a gentle breeze of images delicately touching; nothing i couldn’t manage and enjoy. the experience and reflections would be refreshing.
after a few images, i was done with the delicacy of the event. somewhere in between the image of old college roomates, dinner parties, and my mom at a park, i found memories of you. ones i wanted to forget, never recall or regretted capturing.
you were older, maybe slowly aging from fatherhood. lines across your forehead, slightly hidden by an unfashionable, bright blue hat. i could faintly make out a slight smirk with your eyes hidden behind dark brown, overbearing sunglasses. and there i was sitting next to you, innocently smiling. seemed like i was ready to say the proverbial "cheese," but was caught right between the ch and e, never to finish the ese. slight space in between my teeth; i was young. hair cut from a grandmother who had no idea that bowl cuts were unfashionable and possibly an embarassment. my cheeks were flushed from enthusiasm, we were somewhere in the middle of disneyworld and i was experiencing the quintessential childhood American adventure: one bombarded with exaggerated, colorful Disney caricatures to purchase, take pictures with or admire; cotton candy that no one would buy for me and long lines filled with sweaty, anxious and obnoxious children all screaming for attention.
sitting on the other side of you was my little sister.
i sat staring at this picture with my recollections, reflections, emotions wavering and fluctuating between nostalgia and something else.
she also modeled my grandmother’s signature haircut. black, silky hair, bangs straight across the forehead. cheeks, fluffy and pink. smiling, hand rested around your neck. tiny, fingers pudgy and round. looking happy and young. barely a year old, her eyes looked away from the camera unaware of the moment, context and performance. she just was. sweet and a baby.
you were my hero. the one i wanted to be in pictures with. somewhere nestled safely in my heart was a desire to be next to you. never mind the yelling, nevermind the pain, the tensions i would feel when you would be so angry with me, never mind the confusion, my shoulders hunched up, scared of you and the incessant yelling. never mind the time i propped myself up against a lazy chair while you walked around looking for something to hurt my mother with. never mind that you raised your shot gun at her, at least you didn’t point it. i wanted you. to be right next to you. even if you didn’t smile like my sweet sister did. even if you didn’t embody the same innocence.
maybe my nose scrunches up the same way yours did, or because we both watched boston and bird play the lakers and i would joyously yell when you did. i love(d) you. we’d watch wrestling and cringe when jimmy the supafly snuka would hop on the ropes ready to pounce on someone. we’d both brace ourselves for the winning jump. every weekend i wanted to be with you. early, at seven in the morning, we’d walk to the park. my small hand in your palm, carefully crossing the street. you’d remind me to look both ways. and i’d slowly creep down off the sidewalk and gently tug you across the intersection before the light would turn yellow.
i wanted to be with you; then, nothing else mattered.
i stared at this little picture; a remembrance of us, captured. and just like they would do in the bad movies with cheesy endings, i pressed the picture up close against my chest. i remember what it was like when only loving mattered.
i looked in the box, face drenched; drained from remembering but insistent on finding memories that were comforting. let those gently caress my skin and the insides that were resurfacing, raw and painfully accessible. as usual, even in this moment alone in my room without an audience other than my own conscious, i searched desperately to try and maintain some composure.
i wanted a picture that reminded me what it was like to be in your arms, safely, beyond when I was 10 years old. where are these images from when i was 12 ? instead I found more from times when it was most confusing. when it was most painful. images from when I would find myself hiding from you underneath the kitchen table or frightfully tucked in the closet, hearing you wander around the house, demanding to be let in. screaming, pounding. there had to be an image somewhere else, i rummaged.
maybe a picture that captured you on the phone with me, telling me that no matter what happened, you would always be there for me, watching over me. i desperately searched for a picture of you reminding me that even after you passed, you’d be my only daddy. maybe one of those?
instead, i found some picture of me telling you that i was confused. one of you in casket, the star of a funeral where only 8 people attended. another one of me wishing i could have sent you off better, but i was young and tired without a clue about being the main host at a funeral.
and then, i found the picture of you with your hand in mine, both of us achingly speechless: you, painfully unable to speak because the cancer had spread to your throat; and me, soothing you to death. i captured that one in my mind and it always appears.
i’d say, "let it go, daddy. you’ll be okay, we’ll all be okay." this image was captured and put away for future reference when i’d want to remember a picture of me lying to you.
things are not okay without you.
i closed the box of pictures, didn’t bother to wipe off the dust, i was tired of looking, deciphering and searching. exhausted from trying to (dis)connect to/from these memories, pictures. i only wanted a brief encounter. brief.
