Send Up Flares in the Event of Sadness

A story about my pop

Photo by Karola G: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-in-gray-sweater-and-denim-jeans-kneeling-near-the-wooden-chair-7272939/

I like the sound of my heart beating. Steady. Like a metronome. Reminding me I’m not dead yet.

When my mother died, people told me they were sorry for my loss. I said I didn’t lose her. She’s not a key or a shoe. She’s dead. Buried in a box somewhere in Long Island. I’m not a smoker, but I lit the kind of cigarettes she used to smoke. Wondering what kind of cancer had vacuumed her insides. Was it lung, breast, or bone? I only know it metastasized.

When I talk about my pop, I use the past tense. I talk about the long car drives with the volume on the radio turned up. How I’d fall asleep and he’d wake me for cheese fries. We didn’t have much, but we had each other. People nod. Solemn. Tell me they’re sorry for my loss. Oh, no. He’s not dead, I say. He’s just dead to me.

She wounded me, but he broke me in ways I never thought I could be broken.

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