15 Years Later

      Have you ever sat back and asked yourself honestly “Who am I?”

      Well last night I did and I discovered something unexpected.  I didn’t know who I was.  I knew who I wanted to be and I understood who I had been but who I am in this instance I don’t know.  I have often wanted to sit down and write my story with no lies and not embellishment or embarrassment but I have always been afraid of what the world would find out about me and what I might discover about myself.  Currently I feel it is time to tackle this endeavor.

        As I think about who I am I recall vividly a foggy and frozen January morning.  My Dad, Russell (my brother), and I sat in my Grandfather’s study.  The beige wall paper starting to fray at the seams and the 1950’s carpet, brown and long, would have kept my feet warm had my legs reached the floor.  A homemade desk ran along two of the walls with cabinets above them.  Two boxy, awkward computer monitors and two over worked and underappreciated towers whirred away providing a dull noise loud enough to be noticed only when concentrating; creating the same hushed reverence to knowledge that exists within the research department at a public library.  Two mismatched office chairs sitting atop two spiked plastic floor mats adorn the room along with a rickety stool.  I was sitting with my legs dangling off the edge of my grandmothers deep, rocking, rolling office chair, not reaching the deteriorating plastic mat, my father on the uneven stool and my brother to my right similarly perched, except his toes reached the floor and allowing him to rock and spin slightly, in my grandfather low entrapping chair.  Past my brother, I stared back at myself in from mirrored closet doors.  A face Cherubic, kind, and full of innocence (about to be lost) stares back at me. This closet’s hidden treasured I know well! The banker’s boxes covering the floor two deep, coats, and my some of my Nana’s many grandmotherly dresses.  However, amongst all these tantalizing sights it is the small cupboard cut into the wall above the closet with the unfinished pine door and the satin nickel handle that holds my true interest.  Inside that treasure trove my Grandparents keep Dad’s most prized childhood possessions, G.I. Joes!  The old ones, about a foot or so tall with different outfits for all the branches of the military and special forces.  They even had a jeep they could ride in!  It wasn’t very often we come up to see my dad’s parents, so every time we came I would be sure to spend a few hours playing with those super-awesome G.I. Joes.  This is what I was anticipating on this specific morning until I realized My Dad’s face. 

My father was and is a very spiritual man.  He reads his scriptures every day and works tirelessly to apply the principles he learns from his study in his daily routine.  I could always tell when my father was about to share a tender lesson he had learned from his scriptures because he would get a look on his face, a cross both sad and happy all at one time.  I now understand this look to be that of tranquility and acceptance.  Dad had the same look on his face that I had seen several times when he had spoken in church or bore his testimony about a particularly special and meaningful principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  His mouth strait across as if is only able to control his lips by making them as tight as possible.  Not quite a frown or grimace but not yet a smile just caught in a straight line.  I know that when he speaks next, he will be sure to enunciate clearly again using maximum control of his lips as if concentrating on how each letter of each word should be shaped in his mouth.  I have never seen my father cry unashamed and this I have realized is how he has managed that.  He controls his mouth with the utmost precision and perfection to keep it all from falling apart.  He can’t lie with his eyes however, and I see his eyes have gained that added depth seen on the face of a world war two vet trying to recall the name of the girl he danced with that one night in port in that one city he swore he’d go back to just to find her and marry her then never did.  That stare that looks to the past while envisioning a future no longer possible.  His marbled blue eyes are moist.  The tears are there but if it falls (and I say it because I have only ever seen one tear at a time from my father) it will be singular, lonely and without companion.  It will leave a glistening trail down Dad’s right cheek, because most likely his right eye will betray his dammed ducts.  His brow is furrowed currently and makes him appear ten years older than his forty-two years.  He sits on his stool and looks at my brother and me with his wispy read hair still cowlicked from the sleepless night.  He makes sure we are both paying attention and when he speaks it will be simple, clear, precise, said perfectly, to the point.  So much like the engineer my father is. With one more glance at first Russell’s then my own eyes he said,

 “Boys, last night your mother had a heart attack and died,” There it was!  A single tear down his right cheek.

I didn’t care about his face anymore.

The effect on me was instantaneous.  I cried, I sobbed, Huge ugly tears rolled down my face.  I grabbed Snowy (my teddy bear) bit his ear and sob-yelled-wailed “mommy, mommy MOMMY!” over, and over again.  I would calm down enough to catch my breath just to start on again.  We obviously cut our vacation short and immediately drove home.  My Nana came with.  I learned later in my life that she was supposed to have surgery to remove cancer that week but she canceled it to be there for my brother my father and I when our mother was ripped from our lives.  I cried for the first hour and a half huge tears. Had this happened in 2016 I alone could have solved California’s drought problem.  Eventually I calmed down and my brother and I played out imaginary car games like we always did.  Pretending that we were fighter pilots or spacemen in a desperate struggle for survival.  This escape into my own imaginary worlds stays with me to this day.  I create scenarios where I am a hero saving myself and other from some imagined evil.  In that cocoon of my imagination my stories are formed and develop.  Every character I write about started as me inside the safety of my escape pod.  However, that cocoon wasn’t to last for long this time.  After six long hours, we were home.

Have you ever seen the spot where someone has died?  Where someone who loved you unconditionally died?  I have I could tell.  The EMT’s who responded to the 911 call had done all they could as was evidenced by the mess they left in our kitchen.  Syringe caps, IV tubing, gauze, tape, paper and plastic coverings of sterile tools, bandages, and used sanitizing wipes. There it was outlined vividly by the death trash, the silhouette of my Mom.  My tears flowed again.  This time they were not to stop for two whole weeks.  Family came and we cried together.  My Mom’s best friends came and we cried together.  Someone cleaned up the medic’s mess.  I never discovered or even cared to ask who.  I almost didn’t go to the viewing.  I didn’t want to see her dead.  I’m glad I did though.  Though I still hate them.  I remember the funeral only because I saw how loved my mother was.  The original plan was to hold it in a large room at the church building.  But that became too cramped.  Eventually we had to move into the chapel and even then, had to open the overflow doors and set up extra chairs.  I remember feeling warm and loved by all in attendance.  It was love I never though was possible from complete strangers.  My mom loved everyone and helped all the time.  If ever there was a new neighbor she would bake a cake and walk my brother and I over to meet them.  She volunteered at my school and with my sports teams.  No one could plan a party like my mother!  She was the founder of the “Warm Butts Club” and worked on the PTA.  She was a Cub Scout Den Leader and a full-time cheer leader.  At work, she helped people heal as an occupational therapist and had compaction on all those she served.  It was evident to me that my mother loved all and was loved by all.  My tears persisted though.  For a time, the family slept together on my parents’ bed.  Me wailing myself to sleep with the realization that mom would never tuck me in again.  Or that dad couldn’t do the voices right while reading us harry potter.  They lasted past me returning to my fifth-grade classroom where a sympathy book awaited with things like “sorry your mom died I know how you feel my hamster died last month” now I realize that it was a very kind thing to do but at the time I was angry and ashamed.  I could not be “Sam, the chubby funny redhead” forever onwards I was “Sam, the kid whose mom died over winter break.”  Then as fast as the tears came they stopped.  I have often told people that this is where my tears dried up because though I have cried since then I have never been able to recreate the same fierce raw emotion I had when I lost my mother.

Today it affects me in many ways.  I fear new relationships and the thought of getting married because I’m worried my wife will die young and leave me a widower.  I feel the need to live up to her name and memory than anything else.  Let no one degrade my mother’s reputation because of anything I’ve done!  Heart health is big for me and along with that I tend to be a harsher judge on myself and others when it comes to being overweight.  I always feel like it is a secret and I haven’t been able to put it in words yet I always can.  I find that when I meet those who have lost a parent an instant friendship can spark because of that shared bond of being raised by one parent trying to act as both father and mother.  I look to my father as a saint of a man for being able to guide this far though my life.  Most of all I remember the last words my mother ever said to me and try to live by them.

“Have fun, I love you.”