Tag: family

Laughing on an old brown leather couch.

From August 2014.

One of my dad’s favorite comedians has always been Robin Williams. For as long as I can remember – I have been obsessed with my dad’s laughter.

I think it soothes me. It lets me know that in that moment everything is good. We are all safe. Whenever I have the chance to snag my dad away so we can watch a comedy or a stand-up special – I do just that. When he laughs really hard he makes a lot of movements and eventually it just all becomes one big wheezy sound. Sometimes he laughs so hard that he cries. And we spend the next few days repeating our favorite lines to each other and laughing all over again.

That smile. That laugh. Two of my favorite images in my short lifetime.

Today, we watched a Robin Williams stand-up, followed by an interview. My mother and I on one couch, my dad on the other, and my younger brother passed out on their bed. I watched beyond the images moving on the screen. I looked for small remarks made by Robin, that today, mean a hell of a lot more than they did years ago. Words showing the darkness that lived within him as much as he worked at making others happy and full of laughter.

I realize that he has left us with all of these gems to assist in our laughter for years to come. He is still here. The man that he let us know. All of the different masks that we were privy to.

I also look to the man to my right, my father, and feel the warmth of comfort deep in my belly.

Things are okay.

They could be better.

They could be worse.

But we are here together. Alive. Breathing. Laughing. Smiling. Eating. Drinking.

I make a promise to myself today to pay more attention. To the underlying message in the words spoken by those I love the most in this bittersweet moment. I will not just listen, but hear. I will not just watch, but see. I will not just say, but do. I make a promise to look beyond what they think their eyes are telling them. To see the pain. The dark. The hurt.

I also know that it has never been more clear that when my mother and father no longer inhabit this earth physically with one another but with me – that their words, their laughter, their faces, and their movements will live in

my heart,

my soul,

my mind,

my bones,

my cells.

I will always remember all of the times we laughed so hard that we cried on the scratched up, with years, brown leather couches in the living room.

–S.

Close – October 2014.

He is 9.

I am 22.

Tonight, we laid intertwined in our parents’ bed. His legs over mine. My left arm under his head. The fan blowing cool air over our rumpled clothes clad bodies. ‘I Heard the Party’ by Gem Club was playing through the computer speakers.

Tears run down the sides of his face. He told me that he remembered this song. I’d played it weeks ago in my room and when he heard it for the first time, he cried.

It makes him sad. When I ask him why he is crying he tells me that he doesn’t want any one of us to die. That he wants us to always stay together.

I promise him that we won’t die.

I don’t want to crush his innocence tonight. I just want him to be able to feel whatever his heart feels while he listens to the song. I know that society will soon try to shut down this emotional side of him. But he has a very big heart. I hope that it always comes out on top.

The second time we play it, tears run down the sides of my face. Although we are not necessarily crying about the same things, we are one. We are feelers. We get deeply connected to things. Our happiest moments seem to be lined with a little bit of sadness.

And we don’t have to talk about it.

We just let the melody and the lyrics of the song do that for us.

Even though we’ve barely exchanged four sentences the entire day – in this moment, we are closer than we have ever been.

Both mourning something that has yet to come and that we cannot explain.

–S.

A Perfect Day – Eleven Years Ago.

I took my little brother out for hot dogs, ice cream, and some hardcore dance sessions during the car ride to retail therapy outlet mall.

Every time I think I know everything there is to know about that nine year-old boy, he surprises me.

He no longer eats his hot dogs plain. They are topped with ketchup and mayonnaise now.

His favorite song range from Lana Del Rey to Daft Punk (which he calls Drift Punk, and he tells me that EVEN our dad knows that’s their band name).

As I shift through the three radio stations I generally listen to, he directs me to stop at the ones that play the first song that catches his attention.

I lower the music to point out the airplane in the air, or the dog on the sidewalk with its owner, and he nods and smiles quickly, and turns the music back up.

He still misses our cats and dogs that have passed, and doesn’t quite understand where they go.

He closes his eyes and gets lost in the music.

He moves his head to the beats and pretends to know the lyrics as he lip sings.

Sometimes he actually knows the lyrics, and I look over in surprise, and he gets shy, lowers his eyelids, and stares away with a secret smile.

He gets the cone with vanilla ice cream, dipped in chocolate, with some crushed nuts.

He has an ice cream mustache the entire time, and while I am driving – I am frantically looking for something to wipe his mustache away. I forget in moments like this that he is nine. He can wipe his own mustache – if he really wants it gone. He is almost growing out of all these things.

He will eventually stop asking me to open his coke, or rip open the ketchup packet, or help him pass a level on a game. He will start doing these things independently.

Along with this – our dance sessions while riding in the car will become rarer.

It’ll start becoming embarrassing for him to do so and he will become old enough to stay home by himself and pick playing Halo 4 over going to Target.

I like to write about these emotions, these memories, because one day they will fade as well. I won’t remember them quite as vividly. I won’t remember that I was wearing my aqua button-up shirt with skulls and roses – that is way too big for me now because I’ve been losing weight. I won’t remember that E smelled like my dad’s aftershave because he says it holds for 72 hours. I won’t remember that we actually saw a woman who was crossing the street get hit by a car with our own eyes. I won’t remember that he didn’t get ice in his drink because he says his Dr. Pepper will start tasting like water. I won’t remember that he had a small red pimple on the front of his nose. I won’t remember that he wore his Champion sweatpants backwards for the second day in a row.

One day it won’t be hot dogs, ice cream, and dance. For E, it might be girlfriends, skateboards, and staying up late. For me, it’ll be a career, paying off student loans, and going to sleep early. I hope we always at least vaguely remember a time when life was simpler. Moments where we were infinite with David Guetta blasting in the backyard, ice cream mustaches, and soda highs.

–S.

Mama.

I searched and searched and searched for a friendship that would top them all. Someone to love me through my shortcomings, cheer me on during my accomplishments, and make me face the growth that I so desperately tried to avoid.

You were always there.

To hear about a friendship that ended. Or the butterflies that came with the start of a new one.

You never faltered. Your presence always one of the greatest influences in any move I made in my life.

It took me a long time to realize that you are my greatest friend.

I am lucky, honored, and humbled to share this life with you.

I have found you in every life before this one, and I will find you in every life after this one.

–S.

IOU.

I could cross the universe a million times in hopes of a love greater than yours and never find it.

Unconditional love is what you provide and I want to spend the rest of my life paying you back for that.

I owe you all of the seeds yet to be planted, every seed currently taking root in the earth and all of the plants and flowers blooming.

–s.

When my brother turned 9.

2013.

I think even when you turn 36, or 82, or 117, I would still call you baby.

You were born the day before I started eighth grade.

I was worried about which of my best-friends were going to what high school, my whole life ruined and in shambles. How was I ever going to pick where to go?

Mom already told me that she wouldn’t fill out the transfer papers. Do you think I could have forged them?

And then there was you. Little, but big at the same time.

With a head full of brown hair. You peed on the nurse. That’s when I knew you were going to be trouble. You were so…so baby. And I was scared to hold you. What if I hurt you? Or if I didn’t hold you correctly? Or you started crying?

In time, you became my little, but big at the same time best friend.

I think the most important thing that I have learned from your nine years on this earth is just to breath. Life isn’t about marking up a calendar to next year and back of things that need to be done. Life isn’t about constantly making lists. Life is just about living.

Sometimes you take fifteen minutes to say something that could have been said in one sentence, and you remind me of our mother.

Sometimes you get frustrated really easily and shut down, and you remind me of our father.

Sometimes you nod your head to a song you don’t know the lyrics to and you close your eyes, and you remind me of myself.

I know that there will be a day when mom and dad won’t be on earth with us and it’ll just be the two of us. Life won’t always be fort building, ramen making at midnight with melted slices of cheese, waking up to Nerf guns, cannon balls in the pool, ice cold cokes on a summer day, Halo 4 campaigns before going to sleep, Teen Titans at 3 am, or scavenging the refrigerator for two items that are possibly edible together.

People move away. They have their own families. They stop talking. They start again. They love. They get hurt. They love again. They never stop loving. These are also parts of living.

These are things we don’t write on our list or our five-year plan.

I remember when we had to put Whoopie to sleep, I think that was your first real loss.

You lost your best friend. The dog that you’d known since birth. You were eight. For a long time we were worried because you were really sad, and you stopped telling jokes and laughing as often as you used to. Your spirit wasn’t as bright as it had always been.

And then we brought Ringo home a couple months ago, and you didn’t want to tell mom and dad, but you whispered in my ear that it made you sad although you really liked Ringo – he just wasn’t Whoopie.

My heart broke baby.

I want you to know that if I could somehow ensure that a part of you stays innocent forever, I would. That a part of you still cries when Sarah McLaughlin comes on and they show the commercial with the animals. If I could somehow make sure that your heart is always big and always full of love and that you never get tarnished, I would do that for you. Even if it meant sacrificing any amount of happiness of my own. I want you to never be afraid to be yourself. Even if kids laugh. I want you to wear clothes that don’t match, if you want to. I want you to do the robot to a song that the robot ‘shouldn’t’ be done to. I want you to mouth lyrics you don’t even know. I want you to still hug mom and dad and tell them that they are your best friends. I want you to keep laughing. Keep dancing. Keep dreaming. Keep loving. Keep smiling. Keep hoping. Keep wishing. Keep being goofy. Keep telling stories. Keep telling corny jokes. Keep living. It has been an honor to help raise you, to love you, and to take care of you.

I hope you always remember a time when we laughed and played together, and the world seemed a little simpler.

–S.

A Letter to my Dead Grandfather.

What if you never left?

I saw a picture of you holding me as a baby.

But I’ve never felt that.

My mom says that you talked to me as a baby.

But I’ve never heard that.

You’d have more than a little to drink every night.

But I’ve never smelled that.

Word on the street is that whatever needed fixing, you were the man.

But I’ve never seen that.

If you ever cooked,

I’ve never tasted it.

You died. I have no memories. How can I feel a connection to you?

When we visited grandma eleven years ago, I found a box of pictures in the room I was supposed to be sleeping in. As everyone slept, I lined the pictures up on the carpet. Some were of you when you were younger. Some were of grandma. Some were of you two together. They were all in black and white.

I wished that you could reach out to me. Say something. Anything.

Let me know you are here. I wonder what kind of life you imagined for me.

Life is confusing and complicated.

When grandma died, your daughters stopped speaking to one another. I wonder if my aunt even knows about the box full of pictures. I wonder if they are collecting dust underneath the bed. I wish she would have sent half of them to me. I know that I would’ve stared at them for hours. I would’ve wondered if your smile was real. I would have searched for clues. I would’ve run my fingers down every picture.

Mom sometimes tells me stories about you that she remembers.

I know what it is like to love a person you’ve never met.

I know what it is like to miss a person you’ve never known.

Grandpa.

Where are you?

–S.

Dad’s Birthday Card via 2014.

You are peace of mind when I’ve watched a scary movie and can’t go to sleep.

You are words that I don’t want to hear, but need to listen to.

You are sweets after your daily nap.

You have always been very hard on me and with age I have realized it was all to make me better.

Thank you for all of the laughter over the years.

I hope with time I am able to continue to make you proud.

You are a strong man whose sacrifices for his family are endless.

I hope I learn to fear less one day. I hope my future husband can look at me with the same magnitude of love in your eyes when you look at mama.

I owe you all of the video cards in the world.

–S.

Brother’s 12th Birthday Card.

From 3 years ago.

Could you do something for me? Could you just hold on a second? Stop growing for a minute. Stay innocent a moment longer.

I’m not ready because I know what’s out there. I know that the world can break your heart a million ways to Sunday. And if I could somehow make it so, I’d shield you from it forever. I’d keep you in a bubble, so that I’d never have to see you hurt, down, or crying.

But then I’d be doing the world a disservice. Because your heart is one of a kind. I know that maybe I’m a little biased because you’re my baby brother. But I’ve seen you hold the door open for those who don’t have the same physical abilities we do. I’ve seen you cry at a Sarah McLaughlin commercial. I’ve heard your jokes. I’ve listened to you singing your favorite songs. I’ve seen you doing something you love. I’ve heard you laugh. I’ve seen your concentration when you draw. I’ve heard your hilarious comebacks when playing video games. I’ve seen your eyes light up when you’re building a Lego set. I’ve seen you love on a kitten. I’ve been amazed by your understanding of equality and the wisdom you possess beyond your years.

We never tried to shield you. We let you find your own opinions. Your own way.

And I know you’re going to be okay. Because you’re one of those people who is unapologetically themselves. A light in a too often dim world. A candle lighting the rest of the candles. A sparkler shooting sparks after the rest of the fireworks have died down.

But could you do something for me?

Could you just hold on a second?

I love you, E.

–S.

Pops.

You are the strongest, toughest, funniest person that I know.

I can’t imagine a world you’re not a part of.

One where I don’t get to see your nostrils flare or hear your funny comeback.

One where I don’t get to see you loving mom or brother.

Knowing you’re somewhere living, breathing, loving, and laughing gives me the strength to always do the best that I can even when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

–S.