When I was in the eighth grade, my weekends generally consisted of marathon sleepovers at one friend's house or another's. We'd spend Friday night eating pizza and verbally dissecting the most recent middle school social drama over the soundtrack of whatever Top 40 garbage the local radio station was playing on an endless loop of the same 5 songs per hour. All of Saturday was then spent either taking up space at that friend's house in my pajamas or aimlessly wandering around with that friend at whatever location her parents had agreed to let us roam: their neighborhood, the mall, or that stretch of downtown that had absolutely nothing to offer a 13-year-old but an endless selection of college t-shirts and a wide array of bars we wouldn't see the inside of for another half a decade or so. Saturday night was then spent doing a rinse-and-repeat of Friday night--just switching either the location (ex: my house vs. theirs) and/or the friend (ex: Katie vs. Katrina).
It was on a weekend much like this that I returned to my house late Sunday afternoon with the usual school-based deadlines spilling out of my book bag. This particular weekend, I was down to the final hours before a children's story was due to my to my 8th-grade English teacher. Naturally, I'd had weeks to complete it--but like many of my teenage counterparts (as well as my current 36-year-old self), I had a way of making things unnecessarily difficult for myself. I'd had a rough sketch in my mind of some silly story that rhymed about some spunky little cliche named Jessica-Bessica Doodle, who would endear herself to my readers through her quirky adventures. I'm pretty sure the whole idea was a rip-off of something I'd grown up reading--and quite possibly a veiled plagiarism of the Amelia Bedelia series. Somewhere between the hours of 4 PM and 5 PM, however--after several rounds of pacing back and forth around my sister's room--I abandoned the entire tired concept and wrote something completely different. I wrote the words, drew the pictures, and sewed it all together using a simple book-binding method my Catholic school art teacher had taught me in the 4th grade--because those are the things I remember. I can't recall the location of my phone from minute to minute if it's not physically tethered to the outlet by a charger. But memories of elementary school art techniques are apparently cocked and ready in the chamber of my consciousness for whatever situation might arise.
I'm still not quite sure how I ended up with what was essentially a pretty depressing story. Both of my own parents are--luckily--still very much alive to this day. Reading it now as an adult, my understanding of any true loss was pretty obviously lacking. People I've known since then have lost close friends, husbands, and parents--and I'm pretty sure the raging hellfire of their contempt would incinerate me on sight if I tried to assuage their pain with idea that their loved ones' eternal presence could communicate with them on a daily basis through a contrived version of Morse-code for the immortal (in other words, a star blinking at them). But I believe my 8th-grade heart was well-intentioned, if grossly naive and uninformed. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about this story a time or two within the context of comforting those who've experienced loss--like the person who feels compelled to tell you this tragic event is somehow part of God's plan--or any number of spiritual Hallmark card inscriptions that would undoubtedly make me want to punch someone in the face if I was on the receiving end.
Aside from the fact that I was pretty much preaching out of the ignorant side of my 8th grade ass with this story, a few other things are worth noting. One, its reference to the game Old Maid, which I distinctly remember playing the hell out of as a kid--but which has SURELY fallen out of favor as a kid's game, if only because of the unsavory message it sends to the youth of our society--that the object of the game is to avoid the elderly unmarried woman like a gurgling corpse from The Walking Dead. Two, the fact that I draw the human figure exactly the same as I did 25-30 years ago--and clearly got lazy with my illustrations midway through the book--hence the recurrence of clouds or a single star, rather than any attempt to depict any more complicated action from the story on those particular pages. Three, Daddy's courtship with Gloria was either a best-kept-secret or a total whirlwind--because he drops the bomb that they're engaged the first time the kid ever meets her. Nice going, Dad. And last but not least--my apparent struggle with the grammar aspect of "mean" in the title vs. intermittent use of the 3rd person singular "means" elsewhere in the text. Either could be correct depending on how you want to read it..."three blinks" as a single entity or "three (individual) blinks" each being their own separate thing...but perhaps this future speech/language pathologist could have thought about that a little bit harder before etching each word in pen--which was, by the way, my only means of making something like this back in the day. All that fancy word-processing and printing of typed words in different formats was way above my pay grade at the time, based on my knowledge of computers in 1993.
I handed this book in to my teacher just hours after its completion the night before. I got a good grade and was asked, along with a small handful of other kids, to read my book to the class. I took this as a compliment, of course--but having since worked with my share of 8th graders, I realize the bar may not have been set particularly high in this instance. My parents, infinitely proud of my efforts, received this book like everything else I ever wrote and praised me up and down like I'd reinvented the concept of words in general (love you, Mama and Daddy). My dad even went as far as attempting to publish it--however unsuccessfully. It turns out publishers weren't in the market to endorse the work of an especially morose adolescent after all. Little did they know that, one day, any Tom, Dick, or Tucker Max could "publish" the hell out of himself for free, regardless of quality or content (take THAT, Simon and Schuster!)
When this book finally resurfaced after decades in a box of my crap corroding under my parents house--I admit, I was happy. I'd always been proud of this little story--because it is a sweet, if somber and, at the same time, overly optimistic little thing. But also because it reminds me of those especially sweet moments in life when I've snatched something halfway decent from the jaws of procrastination and laziness--like the time I aced a project in college by fabricating a month's worth of (what should have been) daily journal entries in a single sitting for an entimology class where I'd been tasked with observing the habits of a milkweed bug in a petri dish beside my bed. I've always been a little awkward in the moment and will almost never have the last word in an argument because I lack a certain quickness when thinking on my feet. But given the opportunity to sit and write something down--there's a fair chance I might just be able to fool you into thinking I'm pretty clever.
I shared this story with my own kids, against my better judgement, the same day that I was scheduled to attend a meeting for my son's preschool that coincided with the bedtime ritual. Following the nervous breakdown my younger son had upon realizing my absence as Daddy tucked him in--Ray texted me "Yeah...maybe don't read your story about "Dead Mommy" to the kids on a day you're missing bedtime?" Yikes. Fortunately, the trauma of "Dead Mommy", in my son's case, was easily dissolved with a steady stream of lollipops and gummy treats--so keep those handy if this story gets you down. Otherwise, just join me in a collective suspension of disbelief over how this dad could have known to pick one of the few stars that could be seen year-round from his daughter's window, completely without the help of a telescope. And while you're at it--if you still can--hug your mama. Cuz you're gonna want to.
It was on a weekend much like this that I returned to my house late Sunday afternoon with the usual school-based deadlines spilling out of my book bag. This particular weekend, I was down to the final hours before a children's story was due to my to my 8th-grade English teacher. Naturally, I'd had weeks to complete it--but like many of my teenage counterparts (as well as my current 36-year-old self), I had a way of making things unnecessarily difficult for myself. I'd had a rough sketch in my mind of some silly story that rhymed about some spunky little cliche named Jessica-Bessica Doodle, who would endear herself to my readers through her quirky adventures. I'm pretty sure the whole idea was a rip-off of something I'd grown up reading--and quite possibly a veiled plagiarism of the Amelia Bedelia series. Somewhere between the hours of 4 PM and 5 PM, however--after several rounds of pacing back and forth around my sister's room--I abandoned the entire tired concept and wrote something completely different. I wrote the words, drew the pictures, and sewed it all together using a simple book-binding method my Catholic school art teacher had taught me in the 4th grade--because those are the things I remember. I can't recall the location of my phone from minute to minute if it's not physically tethered to the outlet by a charger. But memories of elementary school art techniques are apparently cocked and ready in the chamber of my consciousness for whatever situation might arise.
I'm still not quite sure how I ended up with what was essentially a pretty depressing story. Both of my own parents are--luckily--still very much alive to this day. Reading it now as an adult, my understanding of any true loss was pretty obviously lacking. People I've known since then have lost close friends, husbands, and parents--and I'm pretty sure the raging hellfire of their contempt would incinerate me on sight if I tried to assuage their pain with idea that their loved ones' eternal presence could communicate with them on a daily basis through a contrived version of Morse-code for the immortal (in other words, a star blinking at them). But I believe my 8th-grade heart was well-intentioned, if grossly naive and uninformed. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about this story a time or two within the context of comforting those who've experienced loss--like the person who feels compelled to tell you this tragic event is somehow part of God's plan--or any number of spiritual Hallmark card inscriptions that would undoubtedly make me want to punch someone in the face if I was on the receiving end.
Aside from the fact that I was pretty much preaching out of the ignorant side of my 8th grade ass with this story, a few other things are worth noting. One, its reference to the game Old Maid, which I distinctly remember playing the hell out of as a kid--but which has SURELY fallen out of favor as a kid's game, if only because of the unsavory message it sends to the youth of our society--that the object of the game is to avoid the elderly unmarried woman like a gurgling corpse from The Walking Dead. Two, the fact that I draw the human figure exactly the same as I did 25-30 years ago--and clearly got lazy with my illustrations midway through the book--hence the recurrence of clouds or a single star, rather than any attempt to depict any more complicated action from the story on those particular pages. Three, Daddy's courtship with Gloria was either a best-kept-secret or a total whirlwind--because he drops the bomb that they're engaged the first time the kid ever meets her. Nice going, Dad. And last but not least--my apparent struggle with the grammar aspect of "mean" in the title vs. intermittent use of the 3rd person singular "means" elsewhere in the text. Either could be correct depending on how you want to read it..."three blinks" as a single entity or "three (individual) blinks" each being their own separate thing...but perhaps this future speech/language pathologist could have thought about that a little bit harder before etching each word in pen--which was, by the way, my only means of making something like this back in the day. All that fancy word-processing and printing of typed words in different formats was way above my pay grade at the time, based on my knowledge of computers in 1993.
I handed this book in to my teacher just hours after its completion the night before. I got a good grade and was asked, along with a small handful of other kids, to read my book to the class. I took this as a compliment, of course--but having since worked with my share of 8th graders, I realize the bar may not have been set particularly high in this instance. My parents, infinitely proud of my efforts, received this book like everything else I ever wrote and praised me up and down like I'd reinvented the concept of words in general (love you, Mama and Daddy). My dad even went as far as attempting to publish it--however unsuccessfully. It turns out publishers weren't in the market to endorse the work of an especially morose adolescent after all. Little did they know that, one day, any Tom, Dick, or Tucker Max could "publish" the hell out of himself for free, regardless of quality or content (take THAT, Simon and Schuster!)
When this book finally resurfaced after decades in a box of my crap corroding under my parents house--I admit, I was happy. I'd always been proud of this little story--because it is a sweet, if somber and, at the same time, overly optimistic little thing. But also because it reminds me of those especially sweet moments in life when I've snatched something halfway decent from the jaws of procrastination and laziness--like the time I aced a project in college by fabricating a month's worth of (what should have been) daily journal entries in a single sitting for an entimology class where I'd been tasked with observing the habits of a milkweed bug in a petri dish beside my bed. I've always been a little awkward in the moment and will almost never have the last word in an argument because I lack a certain quickness when thinking on my feet. But given the opportunity to sit and write something down--there's a fair chance I might just be able to fool you into thinking I'm pretty clever.
I shared this story with my own kids, against my better judgement, the same day that I was scheduled to attend a meeting for my son's preschool that coincided with the bedtime ritual. Following the nervous breakdown my younger son had upon realizing my absence as Daddy tucked him in--Ray texted me "Yeah...maybe don't read your story about "Dead Mommy" to the kids on a day you're missing bedtime?" Yikes. Fortunately, the trauma of "Dead Mommy", in my son's case, was easily dissolved with a steady stream of lollipops and gummy treats--so keep those handy if this story gets you down. Otherwise, just join me in a collective suspension of disbelief over how this dad could have known to pick one of the few stars that could be seen year-round from his daughter's window, completely without the help of a telescope. And while you're at it--if you still can--hug your mama. Cuz you're gonna want to.
X
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| Every night at bedtime, when the sky is dark, I open my window and wave to Mama. She watches me while I say my prayers. Then I say, "I miss you, Mama," and she blinks once because that means, 'I miss you, too.' Then I tell her what I did today, and she blinks two times because that means she understands. Then I blow her a kiss and say, "Good night, Mama. I love you," and she blinks three times because three blinks mean 'I love you'. |
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| The next day, when Daddy came to tuck me in, I told him I didn't want a new mommy. He didn't understand. "Mama thinks I don't need her anymore because I'm getting a new mommy!" I told him. "Last night, I looked for Mama's start and it wasn't there. Now I'm scared she won't come back!" I started crying. |
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| "Don't cry, Son, " Daddy said. "Mama will always be with you, even when you can't see her. And Gloria doesn't have to be your mommy. Just think of her as someone Mama sent down from her star to take care of you because Mama can't be here to do it herself," "Really?" I asked. Daddy nodded and took me over to the window. |
THE END
Wow, that's really great, your dad was right to try to publish it. I'm going to go cry some more now.
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