The Memory

Reprint from Open Diary 11/1/2001

“Mother, can you believe I really have a bicycle!!???”

“P, can you believe I have to go to work??”

It’s my birthday, Chicago 1952 and Mother is rushing to get to her job on the night shift. I’m so excited that I can barely contain myself because in the living room stands a large box which holds my very first bicycle! J.C. HIGGINGS – DELUXE GIRL’S BICYCLE is plastered underneath the picture which covers the entire side of the box. It’s beautiful and it’s BLUE!! The streamers on the handlebars are flying straight out as if the bicycle was speedig through the house while still in the box and the silver carrier on the back fender has a reflector on each side. It’s exactly what I had dreamed of, though I can’t remember telling anyone so.

After Mother leaves, I press my nose against the window straining to watch for Daddy, wanting him to hurry home and put it together for me. Maybe he’ll take me to the park to ride. My little brother picks up on my excitement and claps his hands. Oh, this is the best birthday.

He was putting the silver carrier on when the rear fender sliced his hand open. The cut went straight across the knuckles on his right hand and I saw the bones wet and glistening as he wrapped it tightly in a washcloth. He sat with his right elbow propped up on the kitchen table searching through the large phone book for a doctor as I stood stiffly at his side watching the blood spread to the edges of the cloth and run down his arm – birthday forgotten.

Sweat stood out on my forehead even though my arms were covered with goosebumps and my stomach muscles constricted in an effort to stop the shaking. Drawing in a long breath and holding it, my feet slowly pulled me forward as my eyes shifted downward.

The shirt and tie I bought went nicely with the suit and it was both sad and comforting to know the suit had come from my brother’s closet. I had gotten underwear – boxers like the Director recommended. They came in a package of three and I wondered what to do with the other two pair.

The hair looked right, black and barely tinged with grey with just a touch of pomade to keep it in place. I remembered Vitalis – that’s what he always used when I was young…Vitalis. I noticed that his hair wasn’t parted, just combed straight back by some stranger who had never called him Dock. He was particular about his hair and I knew he wouldn’t have liked it this way. His eyebrows were black with no invasion of grey and one had a small scar cutting a path from top to bottom.

All familiarity ended there. No comfort was to be found in searching these features – I just didn’t know them. I didn’t know him. A feeling of desperation spread through my core because I knew I had to know this was him in order to accept his death and move on. I silently fought the panic rising inside of me.

Obviously some horrible mistake had been made and this was someone else – some stranger – lying here in my brother’s suit. After all, we hadn’t seen him for years when the call came from hundreds of miles away to ask that we make arrangements to have the body shipped home. No, this is all a mistake.

Then slowly with no thought my eyes travelled from the face across the chest down the suit-clad arms and stopped on the hands, so still. I stood stiffly with my eyes squeezed shut and felt the tears forcing their way through my lashes as the thirty-five year old memory escaped from its prison and rushed through my body.

I was eight years old again…standing by Daddy.