Grandpa Revised

Ten years ago I was eight. That’s when perception of the world changed. For the first time I started to see things outside of my own individual sphere of existence. Life became more than just grass-stained jeans and the faint odor of sweat after a day of riding bikes with my friends. I suddenly became aware of another world entirely. The foreign world of “grown ups.” This transformation came with the improbable death of my Grandpa Jackson.

I say improbable because, if you knew Grandpa Jackson, you would never think something as common as death would ever scathe him. He was untouchable. His brown wavy hair, square jaw, and steely eyes gave him the appearance of a normal man. But, he was far from it. Viewed through the idealistic eyes of a child, he was more like a superhero. Clark Kent was Superman. Bruce Wayne was Batman, and Jackson Thomas was Grandpa. He seemed to radiate confidence and possessed an easy charm; you couldn’t help see a little John Wayne in him.

So, when he shuffled off the mortal coil, we were all shocked.
It happened in June. I came came down the stairs after I had showered and got ready for school, and I found my mom crying in the kitchen. This was the first time I had ever seen her cry. It was alarming. You have these idealized concepts about your parents when you’re a child. Parents are supposed to be invulnerable to the things that afflict most children. They are never frightened. Sorrow does not trouble them. They are simply there to protect you from those insecurities. Seeing her there, looking confused and scared, made her look like a heartbroken little girl. Something shifted inside of me, and I watched as a small piece of armor fell from my mother’s exterior.

“What’s wrong, mom?” I walked to the table, and sat down nervously.
“It’s your Grandpa,” she sobbed quietly. She didn’t bother qualifying which Grandpa she was talking about, because my Dad’s dad died when he was a kid.
She didn’t continue, so I prodded. “What happened?”
She sniffed. “He died last night at the hospital.”
“How did he die?” I stuttered.

“Something was wrong with his brain. It happened all of a sudden,” she wept.
Later I would find out that he had a brain aneurysm. A blood vessel in his brain swelled up like a balloon and popped. It filled his head with blood, and he died shortly after he got to the hospital.

My mother gathered herself, and tried her best to replace the armor. She wiped away her tears the best she could and said, “You’ve got to get to school. You’re going to be late.”

After being rushed out the door, numbness took over my body. Death had swooped in and rattled my perception of the world. It continued to do so when we drove to Iowa for Grandpa Thomas’ funeral.

At my Grandpa’s wake, I approached his casket and peered inside. It was the first time I’d seen a dead body before. It was my Grandpa in there, but it wasn’t. Death had robbed him of something vital. Gone was his confidence and charm. Gone was the idea that he was something more than human. Seeing his body, unblinking, not breathing, it wasn’t the man I remembered. I realized then, he was gone forever.
My dad led us back to the uncomfortable metal folding chairs that had been placed in aisles at the funeral home. People shuffled in and out, and stood at the front of the room, and peered in the casket looking at the body that used to be my grandpa. At one point during the wake, I looked over at my father, and was shocked. He was staring at the casket, and I noticed a single tear rolling down his cheek. I had never seen my father cry before either, and once again, that familiar feeling settled in to the pit of my stomach.

My parents had known each other since they were little kids. He would often spend time at the Thomas’ house. When his dad died, Grandpa Jackson became like a father to him. With his death, both of my parents lost something.

After the wake, my family and my aunts, uncles, and cousins went to a restaurant called The Sizzler. The wake had been close to three hours, so I was starving. As we grabbed our plates and walked around the buffet, I saw my mother sitting quietly at the table alone. Her head was in her hands, and she was crying quietly to herself. I absentmindedly piled my plate high with an assortment of food. She hadn’t eaten anything since we found out a couple of days ago. She had barely had anything to drink as well.

After grabbing a soda I returned to the table. My dad was talking to her in a hushed voice. He had brought her a salad, but she was refusing to eat it.

“You have to eat something, Amanda.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself. This isn’t healthy.”
My mother lifted her head, and met my father’s eyes. “I said I’m not hungry, Roger. Please. Drop. It.”

I shoveled a spoonful of chocolate mousse in my mouth. “Can I go get some more?” I asked, interrupting their confrontation.

My dad kept his eyes locked on my mom. “Go.”

Again, I loaded my plate. Chicken, ham cottage cheese, carrot sticks, salad, chocolate mousse, a whole banana, vanilla soft serve ice cream with sprinkles. My appetite seemed to grow out of sympathy for my mother.

My dad was still at it when I returned to the table. My brother and I exchanged nervous glances, as the rest of the extended family started to take notice of my parents’ conversation.

“You don’t understand, all right?” my mother’s voice rose hysterically. “How could you possibly? He wasn’t your father!”
“He was as much my father as he was yours. I practically grew up in your house with your family.”
“It’s not the same!”

This was the first time I’d seen my parents argue. It went on the ever-expanding list of things I wasn’t aware of. Before the funeral, I would never have imagined my parents getting in to a disagreement. Their marriage, and general attitude towards each other, was above reproach. Maybe it was the overabundance of food in my stomach, but uneasiness began to creep inside of me. I needed to stop them before they said things they didn’t mean.

“Hey Dad?” I interjected.
He turned in his chair and shouted “What!”

Another first. He had never shouted at me before. Well, at least not without merit. I wasn’t the model of perfection and often got scolded for my misbehavior. But, this time I hadn’t technically done anything wrong, and my father realized that almost immediately. Seeing my startled expression, he seemed to deflate him a little. He took a breath and repeated himself, this time in a calmer voice. “What did you need, Nathan?”

“I was just wondering if I could get some more ice cream?”
He smirked, “Yeah, sure. Go ahead, but after that, you’re done. I’m not sure there will be much food left after we leave here if you keep it up.”

When I got back to the table, I noticed my mom half heartedly picking through the garden salad my dad had brought her earlier. Even though the sight of mother acquiescing to my father’s wish restored some of my doubt, the queasiness returned to my stomach. However, this nauseu had nothing to do with with changes happening all around me. It had everything to do the glut of food churning in my stomach. You’ve heard the phrase, “Where your heart on your sleeve?” Well, the polite patrons of The Sizzler and the members of my family did not appreciate me wearing my partially digested food on my sleeves. And pants. And a good portion of the tablecloth.
We left The Sizzler in a hurry, and I pushed my parents’ argument far from my mind.
The following day, after the funeral service at the church, I stood by my father while the preacher said the closing benediction. Choreographed gun blasts echoed through the stifling air.

“Dad, why are those men shooting guns?” Sweat poured from my armpits, as the uniformed men discharged the shells and reloaded.
“It’s called a twenty-one gun salute.”
“Why are they doing that?”
“Because your Grandpa was in the Korean War.”
“Right, but—”
“Shh,” he quieted me.
I gave a furtive look at my mother. Her eyes were red. She was holding a handkerchief to her mouth to quiet her continual sobbing.
Concluding the blasts, family members scurried forward to retrieve the spent shells. Lilies from atop the casket were dispersed as mementos. Small trinkets to consolidate memory.

I clutched a shell in my pocket. My finger traced the barrel of the bullet. The casket had been stripped of all of its flowers. It looked uncomfortably naked. I walked forward apprehensively clutching a lily in my hand. Slowly, I extended my hand and placed the flower on top of it. It felt like everyone was watching me, but when I turned around, no one was. With tear stained faced, and the occasional weak smile and laugh, most shuffled back to their car, oblivious to me.

I walked back to the minivan with my family, and soon, we were headed back to Minnesota. From the backseat, I thought about a lot on the way home. What was happening to the adults around me? Was I simply unaware of their humanity? Their normality. Did my mother and father share the same emotions that I experience on a day-to-day basis? Where they just like me? Were they just grown up versions of myself who happened to have children?

One thing I knew for certain. No one was safe now. We could all break.

Grandma

Exploring a new voice in the piece...This will come after the musical piece. It follows the period right after the first time my mom came back.

Collectively my family caught our breaths when my mom came back the first time. It is like in any stressful situation, unbeknownst to you, the tension settles in your chest. You fail to breathe, and only do so after you regain your calm and find your footing. That’s what it was like now that she was back. We were all breathing again. We were all living again. What I failed to realize is that my mom came back, in part, because my dad’s mother was about to breathe her last. Like most children, I was oblivious to my surroundings. The only thing I had really been focusing on was my mother’s return, and now that she had finally came back, I was happy. I could focus on the trivialities of childhood again.

My dad’s mom was like most grandmothers. We would visit her every couple of months, and sometimes do holidays there with my dad’s brothers and sisters. She would have the dish filled with the usual assortment of candy that had been there since President Truman was in office. And like the buck that “stopped here,” the candy had too. It had remained a fixture in the room for decades. It was more a decorating strategy rather than anything you would actually eat. It helped bring the attention to other aspects of the room as you steadfastly avoided the dish. But, as you looked around her place, you couldn’t help notice a commonality which, I suspect, is customary in grandparent’s houses and apartments everywhere: it was…for lack of a better word, old. You knew an old person lived there.

At any rate, we had been visiting my Grandma more in the months prior to my mother’s return. I paid more attention to the Norwegian flatbread, known as lefse, that she made than I gave ever gave to her. If I had been looking, I would have noticed her features tightening, her rapid loss of weight, and the loss of the little color she had left in her fading auburn hair. Apparently, she had cancer. For how long? I couldn’t tell you. I still don’t know, to be honest. I just remember being being told, “she had lost her fight against cancer” when I was sitting in front aisle of church during her funeral service. I remember thinking, “huh,” in an offhanded sort of way. “So, that was it.” It was like getting an answer to a riddle you hadn’t really been thinking about at all. It’s not that I didn’t care about my Grandma. I did love her, but for whatever reason, I never bonded to her like I did to my mom’s parents. I honestly felt more concerned for my dad than I did for myself. Both of his parents were gone now.

But, as luck would have it, my mother was there for my dad during his grief. I remember walking in to their bedroom one night shortly after my Grandmother’s death. It was dark, and a sliver of light sliced through the room as I opened the bedroom door a crack. My dad was lying on his back, fully clothed, with his hands behind his head. His glasses made his eyes two reflected squares of light. My mom was next to him, with her hands wrapped and her chin, and her head on his chest. I couldn’t tell, but I think my dad was crying. They sat there in silence. Sometimes, that’s all you can do. Quietly shoulder someone else’s grief.

After we scattered my grandmother’s ashes on a blustery winter day in November, things started to get back to normal. My father was never one to talk about his feelings, so there were never any awkward conversations about how he was holding up. Soon, we brushed the ashes under the rug and moved on. We returned to our well-worn routines and habits. For me that meant school and playing in the piled high Minnesota snow. For my parents, marital bliss, which meant trust issues, aruging with each other, and my mother sleeping on the couch.

The first time I came downstairs and saw her curled up on the couch trying to squeeze underneath a blanket that was too small, I froze. I was under the assumption that things would go back to normal. Not the “tangential normal” from the previous summer where all my parents did was fight, but the “Normal normal” when my parents used to be happy. My mother’s return was supposed be a permanent thing, and the couch episode was the first sign that it wasn’t. She was supposed to be working on being a mother and a wife again, not exploring the responsibilities to see if she could be one when she grew up.

Grandpa Thomas

I've started fictionalizing the piece. In reality, my grandpa died of cancer, and he wasn't from Iowa. My dad's dad did not die in an automobile accident. He drowned in the Mississippi. And, my grandpa's last name is not Thomas. Look at all that fiction! Another piece I'm working on. Still in progress.

I suppose it all started with my Grandpa Thomas. He was my mother’s dad, so I suppose he was human. But, when I was a kid, he seemed so much more than that. He was untouchable. He was a god among mortal men. His brown wavy hair, square jaw, and steely eyes gave him the appearance of a normal man. He was far from it though. Viewed through the idealistic eyes of a child, he was more like a superhero. Clark Kent was Superman. Bruce Wayne was Batman, and Jackson Thomas was Grandpa. There was no easier way to put it. To complete the picture, with the confidence he exuded combined with his easy charm, you couldn’t help see a little John Wayne in him.

He once sent me a postcard when I was a kid. The front cover had a painting with a little girl walking through the countryside. When I looked at it, the picture was replaced with him as a young man. He grew up in Iowa. I could see him walking through the tall prairie grass swirling around him with his palms up. He felt the course grass with his calloused hands. They had been made hard by the wooden handle of the ax he used to split wood to keep his family’s home warm in the winter. As he walked through the fields by his house smelling the sweet scent of lilacs in the air, he would dream of a life beyond his mundane rural existence. He wanted to see the world. And, so he did. Years before Jack Kerouac published his book about his hitchhiking experience in On The Road, my Grandpa Thomas found rides when he could and saw the world. After exploring the States, he enlisted in the Army and went to Korea where he acted as a Colonel.

All of these details added to the mythic background of my burly Grandfather. While some men my wither and fade, I thought my Grandpa would never perish. That’s why it was such a shock to all of us when he died unexpectedly in June, when I was eight.

I came came down the stairs after I had showered and got ready for school, and I found my mom crying in the kitchen. This was the first time I had ever seen her cry, so it was alarming. You have these idealized concepts about your parents when you’re a child. Parents are supposed to be invulnerable to the things that afflict most children. They are never frightened. Sorrow does not trouble them. They are simply there to protect you from those insecurities. Seeing her there, looking confused and scared, gave her the appearance of a heartbroken little girl. Something shifted inside of me, and I watched as a small piece of armor fell from my mother’s exterior.

“What’s wrong, Momma?” I walked to the table, and sat down nervously.

“It’s your Grandpa,” she sobbed quietly. She didn’t bother qualifying which Grandpa she was talking about, because my Dad’s dad died when he was a kid. He was driving drunk, and accidentally drove his car off of a bridge.

She didn’t continue, so I prodded. “What happened?”
She sniffed. “He died last night at the hospital.”

The room came in to sharp focus. I became aware of the feeling of my sweaty palms on the vinyl tablecloth. Small grains of sugar left from someone sweetening their cereal stuck to pads of my fingertips. I could feel the warmth from my socks as they pressed against my feet. All of this happened at the same time I was trying to get a hold of the question that was swirling in my brain. Grandpa is dead? How could that happen? People you care about don’t just die! My parents weren’t going to die. “It’s not possible,” I thought to myself.

“How did he die?” I stuttered.

“Something was wrong with his brain. It happened all of a sudden,” she wept.

Later I would find out that he had a brain aneurysm. A blood vessel in his brain swelled up like a balloon and popped. It filled his head with blood, and he died shortly after he got to the hospital.

My mother gathered herself, and tried her best to replace the armor. She wiped away her tears the best she could and said, “You’ve got to get to school. You’re going to be late.”

After being rushed out the door, numbness took over my body. So many changes happened within the last ten minutes that would make thing different forever. Death had swooped in and rattled my perception of the world. It continued to do so when we drove to Iowa for Grandpa Thomas’ funeral.

My parents had known each other since they were little kids. Since my dad’s homelife wasn’t ideal, he would often spend time at the Thomas’ house. When his dad died, Grandpa Thomas became like a father to him. In many ways, both of my parents lost their father.

At my Grandpa’s wake, I approached his casket and peered inside. It was the first time I’d seen a dead body before. It was my Grandpa in there, but it wasn’t. Death had robbed him of something vital. Gone was his confidence and charm. Gone was the idea that he was something more than human. Seeing his body, unblinking, not breathing, it wasn’t the man I remembered. I realized then, he was gone forever.

My dad led us back to the uncomfortable metal folding chairs that had been placed in aisles at the funeral home. People shuffled in and out, and stood at the front of the room, and peered in the casket looking at the body that used to be my grandpa. At one point during the wake, I looked over at my father, and was shocked. He was staring at the casket, and I noticed a single tear rolling down his cheek. I had never seen my father cry before, and once again, that familiar feeling settled in to the pit of my stomach.

After the wake, I stood by my father while the preacher said the closing benediction. Choreographed gun blasts echoed through the stifling air.

“Daddy, why are those men shooting guns?” Sweat poured from my armpits, as the uniformed men discharged the shells and reloaded.

“It’s called a twenty-one gun salute.”
“Why are the doing that?”
“Because your Grandpa was in the Korean War.”
“Right, but—”
“Shh,” he quieted me.

Concluding the blasts, family members scurried forward to retrieve the spent shells. Lilies from atop the casket were dispersed as mementos. Small trinkets to consolidate memory.

I clutched a shell in my pocket. My finger traced the barrel of the bullet. The casket had been stripped of all of its flowers. It looked uncomfortably naked. I walked forward apprehensively clutching a lily in my hand. Slowly, I extended my hand and placed the flower on top of it. It felt like everyone was watching me, but when I turned around, no one was. With tear stained faced, and the occasional weak smile and laugh, most shuffled back to their car, oblivious to me.

I walked back to the minivan with my family, and soon, we were headed back to Minnesota. From the backseat, I thought about a lot on the way home. What wa s happening to the adults around me? Was I simply unaware of their humanity? Their normalness. Did my mother and father share the same emotions that I experience on a day-to-day basis? Where they just like me? Were they just grown up versions of myself who happened to have children?

One thing I knew for certain. No one was safe now. We could all break.

Flowers

Here's a new section I typed out today. I'm still editing it and everything, but I wanted to get something up, so I actually rework this into a fiction piece. At the moment, all of this stuff already happened. I'm not sure how much of the novel I will have to rework, but at the moment, I'm just trying to get stuff down.

Shortly after my mother was diagnosed in February, I went to visit her briefly after school. Downtown was salt-stained and belching steam from the sewer grates. Bundles of clothes, presumably containing people, littered the streets. They all hurriedly rushed from here to there to get out of the cold. I passed them in my 93’ Dodge Shadow, affectionately known as “The Beast.”

I found a parking spot near the hospital and made my way inside.

“Hi, mom.” I replied after finding her room.

“Hey you.”

A curtain separated my mother’s room. Beyond the divider, I saw a portion of another hospital bed. A woman lay on it, asleep. Her hair fell languidly to her shoulders while she slept.

“Who is that?” I whispered.

“I dunno,” my mother sat up slightly, and adjusted the pillow behind her back. “She came in earlier today.”

“Has she had any visitors?”

“Nope. How was your day?

When I left my mother about a half and hour later, it wasn’t her I was thinking about. It was that derelict who shared a room with her. Who was she? Why was she there? I fabricated a complete story about this stranger’s life, until I felt nothing but empathy towards her.

Later that afternoon I walked into a floral shop to buy something for Ms. Unknown. Roses were overpriced, and I couldn’t afford most of the displays either. I settled on a basket of daisies that said, “Get Well.”
By the time I got back to the hospital and secretly crept back to the room, I realized it would be impossible to give the flowers to Ms. Unknown without alerting my mom. Both her and this strange women would have to be asleep.

My sneakers shuffled against the linoleum. My heart thudded against my chest, and as I stood at the door, it dropped completely. The woman was gone. The divider was pulled against the wall, and this stranger’s bed was empty.

Had it not been for my mother seeing me hovering in the doorway, I would have returned home without greeting her.

“Hey,” she said curiously. “What are you doing here?”

I looked at the flowers in my hand, and guilt creased every pore in my body. “I—brought you these flowers.”

Her face brightened and she sat up. “They’re beautiful. You didn’t have to do that!”

“Oh, I know. I wanted to,” I lied.
It was obvious how pleased she was. How appreciative she was of my apparent kindness.

“You could put ‘em over there,” she pointed to the windowsill, which contained
several vases and baskets of flowers from others wishing her well. “Just make some room.”
I moved some wilting daisies and turned to face her. I was ashamed of myself.

“C’mere,” she stretched her arms out. “I love you.”

I accepted the hug. “I love you too. I should let you get to sleep. It’s getting late.”

My shame poked and prodded me to escape. Taking recognition for a selfless act I had wanted to selfishly keep from my mother.

“Thank you for my flowers.” Her mouth broke in to her characteristic crescent.

You’re welcome,” I forced myself to grin. “G’night, mom. I love you.”

As I left the room, I saw her cast another sidelong look at the flowers.

Days later, Pastor Steve and I met on Tuesday to talk. Something we started doing around the time my mom’s hospital visits started. We met at a McDonald’s near the church.

“I saw your mom the other day.”
“Oh yeah?” I fidgited with a French fry slathered in ketchup.
“She showed me the flowers you gave her.”
“Yeah, I got them on Saturday.”
“That was really nice. You could tell how much she loved them.
“It was nothing.” I replied.
It was nothing.

My mother’s birthday passed without drawing much attention. It’s hard to celebrate someone’s birth, while his or her demise is tucked so closely around the corner. “Happy Birthday: You’re Dying!” With Valentine’s Day approaching, my entire family went to visit her at the hospital. My work schedule kept me from having to go.
When I got home that night, I threw my jacket on the kitchen chair and grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge in the basement.

“Daniel?” my father called from upstairs. Something in his voice made me pause. Something had changed.

“Yeah?”
“C’mere. I need to tell you something.”

I climbed the stairs and somehow knew it was about my mother.

He sat on his bed with his feet on the floor.

“What’d the doctors say?” The question lingered in the air for a moment.

He took a deep breath and chose his words deliberately. “The doctors said that anytime the family could see her in the next two weeks, that would be good.” He paused. “It could be that quick.”

The color drained from my face. There was still a chance he wasn’t saying what I thought he was saying. Not even the slightest possibility. It could mean something else. Maybe with the treatment she’d undergo—she’d be too tired to see anyone—No. “It could be that quick.” That meant—My mind stalled.

“Two weeks?” I gasped. “She could die in two weeks?”

“It’s just the doctor’s guess,” he replied calmly. “Nothing is certain yet.”

I blinked and held his words close to my chest. Nothing is certain. Nothing is certain. Yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it could only really end one way. Perhaps that is why I was so ashamed about the flower incident. I suppose the brutal truth of it was that I never thought about buying her flowers. Maybe because “Get Well” rarely crossed my mind. Even at the beginning with her migraines—gall bladder—bile ducts—pancreatic cancer, when I was honest with myself, I didn’t think she would make it. When I went even further and explored the darker aspects of my psyche, I wasn’t sure that I wanted her to. Which made me feel that much worst about everything. It made me feel guilty about seeing my mother because I’d given up on her getting better, and ashamed of myself for not being more worried about it.

No matter how many prayer meetings they held at church, or how greasy my mother’s forehead get when they anointed her with oil, a part of me could already see how it was going to end. And all the conversations with God, the casseroles my “church family” brought for us to eat while my mother was in the hospital, or my mother recommitting her life to Jesus, wasn’t going to change that. The faith they possessed failed to carry me.

And yet…two weeks. Two. Weeks. That wasn’t much time at all. How could she be gone so soon? In all honesty, I wasn’t ready. I had just convinced myself that I was. But in truth, I was terrified. I couldn’t imagine life without my mother, but the truth of that reality would greet me soon enough.

The Past and Pending

Yikes!!!

A blog post. So, let me lay out my plan for you. I'm incorporating the parts of Pandora's Son I have finished, and complete it as fiction. Certainly things will need to be changed, but that is the plan. I will keep you all posted.

Camping Video

A while ago, I posted the short segment about camping with my family. For your viewing pleasure, the Youtube video.

THE MUSICAL-TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK...

Upon entering the driveway, I noticed something immediately. Bright terra cotta pots ascended the cement retaining wall along the driveway. “That’s really weird,” I sighed in exasperation, with a sad shake of my head. “Dad’s finally going crazy.” Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as all of that, I reassured myself. Maybe he bonded with mother earth while we were away, and he developed a deep-seeded admiration of the delicate balance human beings have to strive for to maintain the pristine world around us. No, after careful consideration, those flower pots painted a pretty clear picture of insanity with broad strokes.

Kendall’s mom turned off the van, and we slid the large door open, and ambled out. Kendall helped my brother and me with our suitcases and sleeping bags, and moments later, we said our goodbyes. “See you at church tomorrow, Ken.” I waved, and picked up my stuff. It jostled against my leg, as I prepared myself for the image that was bound to greet me, as I cast a sidelong look at the flowers. My now-crazy, plant-loving father would probably be squawking like a duck in the living room.

When I opened the front door, my brother and I saw something completely different. My mouth gaped and eyes bulged in astonishment. My dad was sitting on the couch, not fondly caressing the leaf of a chrysanthemum, but instead had his arm wrapped around my mother’s. They turned and smiled at the both of us.

“Hi, boys,” my mom said cheerfully.
I continued staring, and when I regained my senses, I replied. “Hey. When did you get back?”
“A couple of days ago.”
“Are you staying?” I asked.
“Yes.” She smiled broadly. My face split in to a grin. Joy pulsated through my body in radiating waves. A faint rhythmic beat tumbled towards my ears. It spiraled up the street, at first as a tremulous whisper, and gathered speed until it was roaring like a windstorm at the front of my house. I know I been imagining it, because as I flitted to the open window of our living room to find the source of the noise, something astonishing greeted me. A marching band was cued up in the street. Their uniforms were a deep grenadier red, with double point waists, and trefoil sleeves. Their helmets had enormous, white plumes, and in their hands, at least 200 men and woman held gleaming, brass trombones, handsome clarinets, or large drums.

I waved at one of the trombone players. He nodded his head and whispered something to the players around him. and they began to play. Something propped against the wall near the front door caught my eye. A gleaming, chrome baton, that hadn’t been there moments before, was waiting for someone to pick it up.

Looking at my family, I grasped the baton in my hand. This seemed trigger an amplification in the music outside. It burst through the closed door with ringing clarity; it swelled in my mind, and rose effervescently in my chest. It spilled in to the house, filling it like gas, until everyone in my family was smiling as a result. Their hands and feet tapped to the cadence. The concentrated happiness that began at seeing my mom back finally forced its way from my body. I laughed hysterically until my stomach hurt, and my eyes swam with tears. I motioned to my family to rise. My parents stood, positively beaming, and fell in line behind me. My brother and sister followed suit, and soon, we began marching towards the front door in unison to join the celebration outside.

Confetti was thrown in to the air as we made our exit, and the full force of the ragtime melody hit us with the force of a semi truck. My family swaggered down the front steps, and I watched in wonder as the inhabitants of the houses surrounding our own, streamed from their front doors, marching in time. An assembly of people gathered around the band.

I paused a moment and surveyed the carnival-like atmosphere my family’s joy had created. Small children laughed and clapped as they watched in amazement as acrobats performed aerial feats high above them, suspended on telephone wires. Grown men and woman ran to greet my family with enormous smiles, holding aloft banners that read, “Welcome Home, Karen!” and “Glad to Have You Back!” Balloons held my attention momentarily as they flew in to the sky, only to be diverted seconds later to an airplane writing the words, “SHE’S HOME!” with incandescent clouds.

The atmosphere finally overwhelmed me, and I bolted from the street in a blur of movement. I seemed to catch everyone’s attention as I leapt up the cement retaining wall, sidestepping the newly potted plants along the way. Along the uppermost step, someone had placed a small trampoline in a divine moment of serendipity. I charged it and jumped. It allowed me to perform a perfect 360-degree, midair summersault, and I landed neatly on the top of the garage with the dull thud of sneaker meeting vinyl. The sound had driven all others away, and as I turned to look at everyone’s faces, I found they were already staring at me. Absolute silence filled the scene, until, perhaps sensing what was about the happen, everyone began slapping their knees and the tuba players created a steady beat. I bent my knees in time to the tempo.

“Friends,” I smiled, as I sang with a force only a nine year old could summon.
“We might all be strangers here,
Behind closed door you might not know what you failed to see.
For the last eight months you’ve been unaware of my domestic catastrophes.
I’m talking ‘bout the loss of dear old mom in my brand new home.
I had trouble (“Trouble, trouble,” the crowd whispered, raising their arms),
I say trouble, she was living with Willie
That was trouble with a “D,”
What could it be?
I mean divorce!
I surely had trouble (“Trouble, trouble”),
She was livin’ with Willie (With Willie?!).
With Willie!” I added emphatically, pumping my fist. “Surely none of you would disagree.”
With my knees continuing to bob, I made a sweeping gesture with an outstretched finger, pointing at the disconcerted mob.
“Now, before you all get worried, I’m glad to say they’ve reconciled
My world’s intact; my mother’s back, she’s with my dad!
For the next eight months, and maybe more, there’ll be no fights behind closed doors
Because my dear old mom is finally home.
I had trouble, my friends, right here.
I say trouble she was living with Willie.
That was trouble with a “D,”
What could it be?
I mean divorce!
I surely had trouble,

Gasping for breath, I shouted the last line, “But, now it’s gone, because she’s home!
Laughter and applause rent the still air. The women were crying and the men were clapping vigorously.
I paused, and spun in place, overtaken with joy, and fell backwards. Wind rushed past my ears momentarily, until I was caught with a gentle nudge, born on the arms of my neighbors. When they set me down, I continued, “It’s a brand new day, and I’m glad to say—” The noise reached a frenzied pitch, as the marching band began to part down the middle like the red sea, and through it came a float carrying my mother and father. They were waving and smiling. Laughter errupted from my mother as she caught my eye. She took a breath and finished my song, I'm finally HOME!