Life is so short
One day you may awake to find
That even your family is aged
And you now stand in the shoes of those
You considered old, not so long ago
It may feel like hours ago you laughed
With those who have left you
By choice or circumstance
You may learn the truth
That your words can kill
Relationships that you thought
Would last forever
But when you wake and look around
Perhaps you will see also
That the grudges and misunderstandings
They add up to nothing
Life is so short
When you realize that truth
May you use it as inspiration
To savor the days you have left
Because yesterday seemed so close
But already it was years ago

The Man I Didn't Know

I was ten and my brother twelve. We were just old enough to fight with one another for our entire trip east to a tiny town in Nowhere, Idaho. Our parents did their best to drown us out with a compilation of golden oldies and 80's mom rock. I guess it worked for most of the way because they talked amongst themselves after we'd bored of listening to their stories. We then turned to one another and shared our handheld games just long enough to get jealous of the other's play time and whined until we fell asleep. I'm still not sure how our parents made it through that stage in our pre-teen adolescence without throttling us both.

I don't recall the hotel we must have stayed at, or where we ate. I remember the weather feeling just like home and a park with an antler arch under which we took pictures. Then as if it appeared out of nowhere I remember the tiny studio apartment where he lived. It might even have been a motel. He had cats; I could lift a familiar scent that reminded me of a litter of barn cats as we soon as he opened the door. Never saw one though, they must have been smoking. I figured that had to be true since the reason he was sick was the cigarettes, so who would be be so bold as to still smoke?

He wore a cowboy hat that was brown and weathered. His boots too had been with him for some time. Simple but clean clothes covered a person I had seen only once when I was five. He didn't look like me really but it was hard to tell under those deep wrinkles. I loved the color of his skin and how it was olive like my Mom's and I thought again how my uncle looked like him and how at least they must both be native with their dark features. I don't remember his eyes because my heart jumped when I tried to look at them. I was afraid, he was a stranger.

Mom hugged him and Dad shook his hand. I think I remember awkward side hugs from my brother and I but I can't be sure. My brother scanned the room just behind the open door for cats to tease. I searched the landscape for any distraction kind enough to present itself.  

His place had to be by that park because I remember us there again almost instantly after leaving his home. We walked, the quiet lot us trying and failing to find words to cut the silence. Once we arrived there was a picnic table and my brother and I took turns sitting on top of it and jumping off. We ran and screamed and chased squirrels because all we had were sage rats at home. He watched us and talked with my parents. I could hear a mumbling between them and smiles surfaced here and there as I pretended not to watch them in my curiosity.

He was like someone who belonged in a movie (if you were to go off his appearance and demeanor alone). The cats and their smokes had to hang back because they tarnished his rugged look. I knew he had been in a war that was a long time ago, different from the one my Dad's father fought. Mom had told me he was sick, something bad with his lungs. I knew he had left my Grandma with gaggle of young children. I had a feeling he might drink. But all this was the summation of my knowledge of him and I wanted to know more.

I'll never forget standing in front of him and shielding my eyes from the sun as I asked him what he did with his days and how he was doing. His responses were quiet and sounded sad but he seemed interested about us kids so we told him about our lives that seemed so big. My brother was in karate and liked video games. I was an overweight ballerina that also really enjoyed volleyball. We did our best to talk up our talents and I remember his proud smile before looking up at the sun and back down to the ground.  He didn't know us but somehow we were still his.

We left him in Nowhere, Idaho that sunny day and it was the last time that we saw him. A year later we had inherited his trusty old Ford truck and a small box full of his own memories. We had his funeral at a church we didn't normally attend and my Grandma was there and that impressed and confused me. Even though I didn't remember much about him, I wanted another of those side hugs that smelled like cigarettes he shouldn't smoke and old cologne to cover it up. I missed the man I didn't know.

As we tend to do, I grew into the knowledge of my family history and who my Grandpa had once been. All of his relatives and kids have that olive skin and most have his very brown eyes- except for the ones that are crystal blue. I still don't know his heritage but I'm more convinced now than ever that native blood colors our unique phenotype.

Of all I have learned of him I have become proud. Sure, he made choices that hurt. I was right to suspect he indulged in the drink. His children missed out on having a father because of it and as a result had the misfortune of experiencing a monster of a stepfather. But he gave them all life, one of them being the amazing woman who did the same for me. His niece told us what a great and kind person he was and how he was one of her favorite people in the whole world. As a young man he was a cook in the Navy and was the only survivor when his ship went down during the Korean War. He was a veteran, and probably the reason my Mom has never stopped chronicling the bravery and accomplishments of other vets- because she doesn't want any others to become forgotten heroes.

I may not have ever known him but I see reflections of that quiet man in my world today. I see him in my dark features, and the absence of him in my very European skin that every summer I can remember I wished to bronze so I could glow like his daughter does. I see him in the relatives Mom worked so hard to connect with after he was gone, the tribe of people that are ours at last.

Sometimes our gift to this world is not what we can offer while we are here. It is enough that we simply are, for our presence has a ripple that reaches beyond who we are or are not and into those who will someday be.  

Meet My Friend June

Blush lighting filled the crowded room as sniffles were muted behind wads of tissue. I could smell the musky perfumes like a vapor that clung to our sadness. It was an olfactory reminder of mortality,  although one also of comfort somehow. Grandma was always a couple decades tastefully behind her peers in gaining any matronly or aged qualities so the old lady stench reminded me not of her, but of her friends whom I'd come to love by proxy.

Elaborate flower arrangements of an elegance she truly deserved cascaded down iron tripods that adorned an oak podium. Behind it my distant cousin preached a sterile sermon. A Sunday sermon, at my incredible hero of a Grandma's memorial. All I wanted to hear was her voice, but since I couldn't I craved stories about her life before any of us had been around. Instead of hearing my Mom or her siblings or any other loved ones cathartically grieve their loss, we endured the church service because it was what Grandma wanted. So, we listened and my sadness fell to my toes like my pantyhose kept threatening to do if I didn't intervene.

When it finally concluded, I stood and tried to be discreet about hiking up my tights and sneaking my Mom a look that reflected frustrated sadness. One of deeper magnitude stared back at me. Dad pinched the tops of my shoulders and kissed Mom's cheek in solidarity and let us know that he and my brother would be waiting in the lobby.

I vacillated between being glued to Mom's side and making my rounds to our relatives. We exchanged tearful hugs and did our best to be strong, but the truth remained that our gentle matriarch was gone. That reality hit us in waves of sobs relieved by the exhaustion only found by loss. My Grandma was a pillar of kindness and grace unlike anyone I've ever known, although my Mom reminds me of her all the time. The loss of such a great woman was intolerable at best.

As the last stragglers forced their feet out the door, I understood their reluctance.  Once they passed the threshold of the funeral parlor her death was official. I just wasn't ready to cross over to the reality without her in it so I lingered along with Mom.

We were finally getting ready to surrender to the funeral procession marching toward the cemetery holding a headstone Grandma had picked out years prior. Just as we turned to grab our coats, my paternal Great-aunt (and Grandma's very best friend since childhood) surprised us with the hugest and most broken hugs. I felt her loss like a heavy cloud as I wrapped my arms around her waist. Even at her age she was so stunning- like an untouched Hollywood star. A tear rolled down her face as she held me at arms length and said to Mom, “I know you're getting ready to go, but I wanted to introduce you to someone.” She smiled and I saw her eyes almost sparkle.

I saw her gloved hand motion someone over from behind us. I looked at Mom and then to our new guest. A woman never short on words, I assure you I was even worse as a teen. Yet I can say with certainty that in that moment I was speechless.  My skin chilled into goosebumps and my mouth fell agape as I grabbed Mom's hand too tightly.

My Great-aunt smiled politely again and put her arm around a short woman with a thick waist. The woman's glasses were outdated by twenty years and her bulky tweed dress concealed a busty figure. The elderly woman smiled at us shyly. We waved limply, now both questioning our own sanity.

“Ladies, I wanted you to meet my friend June! She's just visiting for the day but wanted to pay her respects.” I looked to my Mom just in time to see the color drain from her face. She attempted a response but found no words to express her surprise so I made a quick save. “June, so nice to meet you.” Mom managed a “Thank you for coming…”  With a slightly more saddened smile, the woman nodded and looked to my Great-aunt who told us she would see us at the cemetery once she took June home. The women turned and made their way to the door, an elegant thin frame accompanied by an older and more sturdy build, both so distinctly familiar that neither of us could deny at whom we were gazing.

I grabbed Mom's hand once again and looked at her tear swollen eyes. Shakily I asked her, “Mom, was that…” she just shook her head in shock, saying, “I don't know honey. She looked just like… and her name was…” I saw them glance back one last time before leaving, making eye contact with Mom.

I watched her witness her own Grandmother disappear into the lobby with her mother's best friend. My Great-grandma June had died when I was six. Before the funeral we had never heard of a friend of my own Grandma with that same name, and certainly not her likeness. Yet there she was plain as day and in our very presence, at her daughter's funeral.

As spooky as it may seem looking back now, there was a comfort in seeing a woman again whom our family had so dearly loved. It was the “one more time” that victims of loss always pray for. Yet it was her silence that was startling, something Great-grandma June was never in excess of. She had an amazing laugh and always a word of wisdom or encouragement to share. But that day she had nothing but a presence that felt as temporary as a rose wilting in the desert.

I was sixteen that day and although it's been as many years since, I still can't find an explanation for what happened. It seems that no matter how much we learn in this life, there are some things we just aren't meant to understand.  

The Quarter Life Crisis

Thirty still stares at me, just from the left rather than the right now. It's like the stony face of an elegant cameo that is lovely but silent. The specialized commodity it holds has already proven to be of more wisdom, sophistication, and unpretentious simplicity. I once thought this decade would be my undoing as it brought the death of my youth. But alas, it has given me the gift of contentment.

Though I sit here confident in whom I've become and what I want for my life I'm far from having it all figured out. Last year was my initiation to this era and it was a beginning stage full of growing pains. I had one foot in the past and a hand gripping the edge of that closed door to the twenties. I tried to stay there, attempted to make it fit my new world, thoughts, outlook, body. But try as I may no new piercing or lingo could fit me back into that toothpaste tube once I had been squeezed out.

So, here I sit with a knowing smile that silently laughs at how that year must have looked from the outside and how it felt desperate in so many ways. But what I have gained is a seat at the table of women and men that fit into their own skin. We are a community of adults who have mostly gotten the wiggles out and surrender to the fact that we will never have it all figured out. The difference between us and the skins of ourselves that we have shed is the acceptance that our light shines from within. Oh what a journey it's been trying to light up our eyes, hair, asses, and smiles with things that make us shine. I'm not sure if it's travesty or brilliance that knowing the difference requires failure and pain on a level that involves dying to our very selves so that we can begin to shift into the beings we were always meant to be.

Illustrious grandeur
Is a muse hard to kill
Once she's tempted
And you have seen

All that she appears to offer

The vapor of purpose

Does any of this
Really matter?
Will our passion
Be remembered
As our imprint on history
Sinks a thumbprint deep
Or is it all for not
Moments dissolving
Like disappearing ink
Without the proper light
To display its story?
I hope some of this matters
That someone remembers
Because it hurts to imagine
That it's no more
Than sand awash in the ocean