This is obviously a companion piece to my previous post; it is something I wrote some time ago, and it seems that my feelings on the matter have changed very little.
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Family Stories
When I was
young, my mother told me of one of her dreams.
I was small, single digits probably, but even now I remember it. My mother’s dream is one common to parents I
think; I have had dreams different but similar since the birth of my own sons.
I wonder
sometimes about people’s desire to tell others of their dreams because the
stories they tell are invariably boring and inaccurate. I think of the most dark, private thoughts in
my own head and the way they are expressed in dreams sometimes and I wonder if
it is a favor that God did us that we are mostly unable to remember them.
In my
mother’s dream, she was in a speeding car, in the passenger seat. On the hood of the car was my brother as a
little kid, a toddler probably, hanging on.
No matter what she did, she couldn’t slow the car or reach her son. In the dream, all there was to do was just
watch and will him to hang on, just hang on.
My mother’s
dream was a parent’s dream, a dream about fear and about the realization that
we are not in control and cannot prevent bad things from happening.
We used to
pass stories, my brother and father and I, we would all take turns telling the
same story and when we felt the time was right, we would say “pass” and then
the next person would have to take it up from there. My brother and I as children would tell good
stories about ninjas and car races and dinosaurs. When it got around to my father, no matter
what the story, no matter what the setting, no matter what, a recurring
character named Mrs. Hawiggins would enter the story and change
everything. “No,” my brother and I would
shout, “not Mrs Hawiggins!” But there
was nothing we could do; it was my father’s story to tell and he could tell it
as he pleased.
I hated
Mrs. Hawiggins. I hated giving my story
to my brother. My turn would last until
someone made me pass it. I could just
talk and talk and talk. Doing this,
writing, I mean, telling stories, I think maybe this is just part of that,
keeping the story going, trying to put off the arrival of Mrs. Hawiggins.
My mother
did me the great disservice of telling me that I could do anything I
wanted. I believed her. Even now I’m shocked when I try to do
something and am unable. It is usually
alright to tell these things to children, that they are capable of anything
they set their minds to, because they know better. They do not really believe you. I did however; I believed anything anyone
ever told me, even the big lies like everything will be alright.
My mother’s
dream stayed with me all of these years because of the simplicity of it. I can see it even today: the windshield, the
little fingers clutching the top of the hood, the pale little face locked in a
mask of fear, the panic, my mother begging for the driver to slow down, Jesus
please, just stop the car. In my
version, it is always dark outside and the interior of the car is lit all green
by the dash lights.
If everyone
dies in order, I will be the last one to remember my grandmother alive. After me she will be gone completely. I remember her being nice to me. I remember that she baked her own bread, and
hated when you pulled off grapes but left the stem attached to the vine. She used to fish and drink cheap beer. She had a birdbath in her back yard that
leaked, and water wouldn’t stay in it for anytime at all. When she gave me a bath one time, she put an
inch of water in the tub and wouldn’t give me any more. If it had held water, the birds would have had
a deeper bath than I got. I didn’t like
that. I loved big baths that you could
almost swim in. The water got cold in my
grandmother’s bath quickly.
Sometimes I
imagine what it was like on the outside of the car in my mother’s dream,
imagine my brother hanging on, hoping that his strength stays long enough,
praying to his mother, stop the car, please Mother help me, do something
Mother, save me from this, make this not be happening, all the while being
dragged off the hood by hands of wind, his tiny shrieks of terror stolen
away.
My family
shattered in slow motion when I was a kid and the next thing I knew we were all
apart. We still tell each other stories
from thousands of miles away, our voices scratchy and tiny. We lie to each other and say everything will
be alright.
Our lives
are defined by stories because that’s what memories are, that’s what histories
are. Even though I have no recollection
of it at all, I know that I killed my brother’s duck when I was two or
three. I know that I tried to glue the
cat to the dryer. Hooked up to a
polygraph machine, and with no memory of the event at all, I can say with
absolute certainty that I beat my cousin bloody because he said he was
Superman.
Maybe if
someone reads the stories I make up and the stories, like this one, that were
written into my memory by fate or God or whatever, maybe if someone reads them
sometime and remembers something, a detail like my Grandma’s leaking old bird
bath, or that thing about the grapes, maybe someone will remember her. Maybe, even if there is a catastrophe,
someone will remember me.
In my
mother’s dream, she never said who was behind the wheel, if there was anybody
there or just an empty steering wheel turning by itself in the dark, lit green
by the dash lights as the car and all its passengers are blasted into the
night.
Or maybe it
was that ender of all stories, the notorious Mrs. Hawiggins.
RP 4-19-08
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This one is almost entirely true, as far as truth goes. My mother did once tell me of that dream, my Grandma did have a leaky birdbath. Mrs. Hawiggins is true too; my dad even spoke of her very recently.
I am not sure why it should be so, but I really like this one. It makes me feel happy and sad and hopeful all at once.
Do me a favor and remember, OK?
Because all we have are stories. All we are is a mess of stories, all piled on top of each other.
Still Writing,
RP
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