A Fist full of violets.
I closed my eyes and laid my head on her grave stone. Aunt Debra passed away years ago but I’ve come to visit her only once before. Rain splashed down from the clouds that clogged the sky above. The water felt good against my skin as it trickled down the sides of my face. As I laid there against her grave, mud soaking through my jeans, I let my self wonder back to the years I spent knee high. I let Debra and the sunny summers under her porch slink back into view after they had spent murky years hiding away.
When I was six years old my mother became ill in a way that medicine can’t quite cure, just dull. Depression gripped her and kept her captive, nothing could loosen its grip as she lay dormant behind her “black curtain”. My mothers’ friends who took care of me referred to her hours in bed as that, a black curtain that swept over her but would soon swing back out of place. They always had hope that the black curtain was not permanent, but a passing bout. “Don’t worry Lee, darling, your mother will be ready to play with you tomorrow,” they would reassure me, but that assured tomorrow never came.
It was like only I saw her as she was, a flower deprived of water, destined to wilt. So it came as little shock to me when I was shipped off to my Aunt Debra’s house way down in south Florida.
The morning I was assigned my fate is still pungent in my mind.
I recollect padding across the tile floor to her bedside were she peered up at me with eyes glazed. Out of folds of sheets and bedspreads a soft whisper rose to greet me, “Lee, honey, you’re going to go live with your aunt Debra for awhile.”
Tears dampened my eyes, bursting out across my cheeks. I laid my head on the edge of her bed and sobbed, “Why do you want me to go?? Can’t I stay with you, mama?”
“No tears now Lee, you have to be a big girl,” she instructed,” now give me a kiss then go pack up your bags.”
Standing on my tiptoes I planted a kiss on her sunken cheek. The smell of her perfume tickled my nose making me sniffle more. “I love you mama,” I whispered into her soft skin.
Tears fell from my chin, landing on her blue-black hair that was identical to my own. Turning to leave obediently I looked over my shoulder at my mother; it felt so wrong turning my back on her and leaving the room. My eyes shifted from her fragile form to the objects that took up residents in the room around her. The curtains billowed beside her bed, waving goodbye to me as I closed the door. The door shut making a click as it fell into place, the sound was like a gun shot in my ears. It rang there in my ear drums as I made my way down the hall to my room to pack my things. At the time my only wish was to make my mother well again. To banish the black curtain to some small closet far, far away from me and my family. Now, 17 years later, I wish I could make the dead walk again. Sadly I am not God.
But that’s only a small portion of my story, the core of the apple, so to speak. My woes were only beginning at the ripe age of seven and a half. They paused for a few years while I was with Debra. She eased my pain with loving devotion. She and I would pick violets from her yards, her dwarf hound, Doc, always by our side. Debra’s remedy to all pains was Blue-Stella incense and a cup of cold tomato juice. Nights more often then not were spent in her big, four poster bed. We would go through the ritual of putting me in my own bed, tucking me in and opening the door just enough. Then, every night I’d climb out of my own bed and go to her. Poking her with my index finger I would whisper real low as to not wake up Doc, “Aunt Debra? Aunt Debra, scoot over.”
With a grunt she would roll to her side, leaving me a space to cuddle into. In the morning I would wake to find myself sprawled across her bed, Aunt Debra in the kitchen cooking. Sunday mornings were the best because she made her corn fritters. Scampering in to her sun lite kitchen, she would welcome me in a loud drawl, “good morning my rubber duck!”
“Quack!” I’d happily respond just to see her grin down at me.
“Go wash the duck food from your eyes and I’ll have your breakfast on the table when you get back,” she’d instruct.
Chanting “Quack, quack, quack!” off I’d march to the bath room.
I was a happy child then, without a mother or father but happy none the less.
It was a Sunday in May when I woke to find my aunt Debra still in bed with me. With all my might I tried to wake her but she wouldn’t budge. Doc lay quietly at the end of the bed as I tried to wake her, muffled whimpers coming from him occasionally. He didn’t follow me as I ran from the house, hot tears streaming from my eyes down my face. Florida’s humid, sticky air washed over me as I made a mad dash across the yard and down the road to our nearest neighbor’s house. I threw myself against Ms. Smiths’ screen door, sobbing and banging on it loudly. “Help! Ms. Smith, help!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
The old widow came sprinting out to me wrapped in a puffy pink robe. After explaining to her what all the screaming was about she called for help. I waited on her floral couch for what seemed like hours. Ms. Smith found me there later and crushed me to her breast as she sobbed on the top of my head. “You poor child,” she snuffed into my hair. I cried into her pink rode not because I knew what was going on but because I was utterly confused. I wanted my Aunt Debra and I wanted out of this woman’s house.
I didn’t know death back then. A constant hand that leered dormant over my life until it came smacking down, whisking away what I loved and cherished most. The people I loved were always being swiped away by one thing or another, death or black curtains, leaving me to travel alone to the next perch I could rest on. You can only be slapped down so many times before you learn your lesson and stop getting back up. My mother died shortly after sending me to live with my aunt. She had known for a while she had cancer and it was growing, bent on having her life. She didn’t want to get better; the black curtain had blinded her of all hopes of getting better and being happy. The billowing curtains waved farewell to her in her bed a few weeks after they fluttered partings to me. As I grew older I learned this, and that my Aunt Debra was also taken by the same cancer. I like to think she didn’t know of the sickness that was developing in her, that she didn’t just choose to leave me without a fight.
Lifting my hand up I rubbed it against my damp peach fuzz, all that’s left of my hair after the chemotherapy. Maybe it’s ironic that I will die of the same sickness my two dearest guardians died from, or maybe it’s just bad luck. Either way I refuse to go down without a brawl. My mother once told me that the world has teeth that sink deep into the toughest person skin, but what tears you apart the most is trying to keep the world out. It does no one any good trying to keep life’s challenges at bay; instead you have to try to do the best with what you have without giving up. Once you give up, you sink.
The sun began to poke through the clouds, sending down warm rays of light. I stood to leave, brushing my pants off the best I could. I knew I wouldn’t be back here to this place again even if the cancer allowed me to stick around for a few more years. “I miss you Aunt Debra,” I whispered to no one in particular.
I hoped my aunt wasn’t around to hear me. Instead I wanted her to be off in some magical place whether it is heaven or not. It just felt nice talking to her again like old times. I liked the way her name rolled off my tongue like it did when I was young and asking for a vase to put my fist full of violets in.
When I was six years old my mother became ill in a way that medicine can’t quite cure, just dull. Depression gripped her and kept her captive, nothing could loosen its grip as she lay dormant behind her “black curtain”. My mothers’ friends who took care of me referred to her hours in bed as that, a black curtain that swept over her but would soon swing back out of place. They always had hope that the black curtain was not permanent, but a passing bout. “Don’t worry Lee, darling, your mother will be ready to play with you tomorrow,” they would reassure me, but that assured tomorrow never came.
It was like only I saw her as she was, a flower deprived of water, destined to wilt. So it came as little shock to me when I was shipped off to my Aunt Debra’s house way down in south Florida.
The morning I was assigned my fate is still pungent in my mind.
I recollect padding across the tile floor to her bedside were she peered up at me with eyes glazed. Out of folds of sheets and bedspreads a soft whisper rose to greet me, “Lee, honey, you’re going to go live with your aunt Debra for awhile.”
Tears dampened my eyes, bursting out across my cheeks. I laid my head on the edge of her bed and sobbed, “Why do you want me to go?? Can’t I stay with you, mama?”
“No tears now Lee, you have to be a big girl,” she instructed,” now give me a kiss then go pack up your bags.”
Standing on my tiptoes I planted a kiss on her sunken cheek. The smell of her perfume tickled my nose making me sniffle more. “I love you mama,” I whispered into her soft skin.
Tears fell from my chin, landing on her blue-black hair that was identical to my own. Turning to leave obediently I looked over my shoulder at my mother; it felt so wrong turning my back on her and leaving the room. My eyes shifted from her fragile form to the objects that took up residents in the room around her. The curtains billowed beside her bed, waving goodbye to me as I closed the door. The door shut making a click as it fell into place, the sound was like a gun shot in my ears. It rang there in my ear drums as I made my way down the hall to my room to pack my things. At the time my only wish was to make my mother well again. To banish the black curtain to some small closet far, far away from me and my family. Now, 17 years later, I wish I could make the dead walk again. Sadly I am not God.
But that’s only a small portion of my story, the core of the apple, so to speak. My woes were only beginning at the ripe age of seven and a half. They paused for a few years while I was with Debra. She eased my pain with loving devotion. She and I would pick violets from her yards, her dwarf hound, Doc, always by our side. Debra’s remedy to all pains was Blue-Stella incense and a cup of cold tomato juice. Nights more often then not were spent in her big, four poster bed. We would go through the ritual of putting me in my own bed, tucking me in and opening the door just enough. Then, every night I’d climb out of my own bed and go to her. Poking her with my index finger I would whisper real low as to not wake up Doc, “Aunt Debra? Aunt Debra, scoot over.”
With a grunt she would roll to her side, leaving me a space to cuddle into. In the morning I would wake to find myself sprawled across her bed, Aunt Debra in the kitchen cooking. Sunday mornings were the best because she made her corn fritters. Scampering in to her sun lite kitchen, she would welcome me in a loud drawl, “good morning my rubber duck!”
“Quack!” I’d happily respond just to see her grin down at me.
“Go wash the duck food from your eyes and I’ll have your breakfast on the table when you get back,” she’d instruct.
Chanting “Quack, quack, quack!” off I’d march to the bath room.
I was a happy child then, without a mother or father but happy none the less.
It was a Sunday in May when I woke to find my aunt Debra still in bed with me. With all my might I tried to wake her but she wouldn’t budge. Doc lay quietly at the end of the bed as I tried to wake her, muffled whimpers coming from him occasionally. He didn’t follow me as I ran from the house, hot tears streaming from my eyes down my face. Florida’s humid, sticky air washed over me as I made a mad dash across the yard and down the road to our nearest neighbor’s house. I threw myself against Ms. Smiths’ screen door, sobbing and banging on it loudly. “Help! Ms. Smith, help!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
The old widow came sprinting out to me wrapped in a puffy pink robe. After explaining to her what all the screaming was about she called for help. I waited on her floral couch for what seemed like hours. Ms. Smith found me there later and crushed me to her breast as she sobbed on the top of my head. “You poor child,” she snuffed into my hair. I cried into her pink rode not because I knew what was going on but because I was utterly confused. I wanted my Aunt Debra and I wanted out of this woman’s house.
I didn’t know death back then. A constant hand that leered dormant over my life until it came smacking down, whisking away what I loved and cherished most. The people I loved were always being swiped away by one thing or another, death or black curtains, leaving me to travel alone to the next perch I could rest on. You can only be slapped down so many times before you learn your lesson and stop getting back up. My mother died shortly after sending me to live with my aunt. She had known for a while she had cancer and it was growing, bent on having her life. She didn’t want to get better; the black curtain had blinded her of all hopes of getting better and being happy. The billowing curtains waved farewell to her in her bed a few weeks after they fluttered partings to me. As I grew older I learned this, and that my Aunt Debra was also taken by the same cancer. I like to think she didn’t know of the sickness that was developing in her, that she didn’t just choose to leave me without a fight.
Lifting my hand up I rubbed it against my damp peach fuzz, all that’s left of my hair after the chemotherapy. Maybe it’s ironic that I will die of the same sickness my two dearest guardians died from, or maybe it’s just bad luck. Either way I refuse to go down without a brawl. My mother once told me that the world has teeth that sink deep into the toughest person skin, but what tears you apart the most is trying to keep the world out. It does no one any good trying to keep life’s challenges at bay; instead you have to try to do the best with what you have without giving up. Once you give up, you sink.
The sun began to poke through the clouds, sending down warm rays of light. I stood to leave, brushing my pants off the best I could. I knew I wouldn’t be back here to this place again even if the cancer allowed me to stick around for a few more years. “I miss you Aunt Debra,” I whispered to no one in particular.
I hoped my aunt wasn’t around to hear me. Instead I wanted her to be off in some magical place whether it is heaven or not. It just felt nice talking to her again like old times. I liked the way her name rolled off my tongue like it did when I was young and asking for a vase to put my fist full of violets in.
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