Trying to outrun the rain, I raced with my kids into the warm haven of the bakery this afternoon. It’s bright, warm, full of wood and fresh bread and generous samples; simple happiness and carbohydrates set to the tune of the brass bell on the door.
Standing in line, Grant wrapped himself around my left leg, and Anne around my right. They’re 5, and such random displays of affection are rare enough now that I breathed in the smell of cinnamon, yeast, and grain and simply let us be, enjoying their warmth and closeness as I studied the menu board.
I was stroking their hair and basking in the smell of fresh bread when I heard the first strains of the new song seep through the hidden speakers.
The essence of my father drifted down with the music and landed right in front of me, smiling, whole, young and healthy, dancing and singing the chorus as I’d seen him do a thousand times.
“Sugar pie, honey bunch, you know that I love you! I can’t help myself, I love you and nobody else!”*
Nobody else noticed the sudden exuberant presence dancing in our midst, not even my children.
I felt my father there, as tangible as the samples of bread I was feeding the twins, but reaching out for him would win me nothing but air and strange looks.
The song continued to play and I saw my father dance, heard the sound of him happy at the same time I ordered a round loaf of the tomato swiss, and a toaster loaf of the whole grain, please, and oh, you’re kidding, what do you mean you’re out of cookies?
Mommy Automaton took over and I watched as she fed the kids samples of muffins and sweets to find something palatable in lieu of cookies. All the while I saw her and the children through the flickering images of a home movie memory. It was set in the basement of my childhood home, with my father’s prized jukebox spinning ‘45s–The Tams, The Four Tops, The Temptations. He and my mother danced around the hardwood floors until I begged for a turn, and then he spun me around the floor.
As we left the bakery, I cradled those images, remembering in a mix of pain and gratitude before they vanished like smoke.
Grief is a trickster, a hustler, the ultimate con man with the tradecraft of a spy. He shows up when you least expect him, and no matter how erratically I drive, or how I vary my schedule, I’m resigned that he’ll follow me everywhere. He’ll wait until I think I’m ok, then set ambushes and place banana peels in my path so that I can fall and feel the excruciating pain of a missing part.
At home, I overheard Anne practicing a song for Daddy’s Day at preschool.
“Daddy Daddy let me say, I love you in every way.
I love you for what you do.
I love you for who you are.
Daddy Daddy, let me see, I love you and you love me.”
Boom. Banana peel.
*I Can’t Help Myself, by The Four Tops
This post is a response to a prompt for the online writers’ group, Write on Edge.
The prompt: Select an old blog post you’ve written and rewrite it as a memoir piece. You can focus on one element from it, or include them all, depending on what it’s about. Make sure somewhere in your RemembeRED piece you link to the post upon which you’re basing it.
Word limit is 500.
This is the post I used as inspiration. I labeled it memoir, but it’s most definitely a blog post. It was written on the first anniversary of my father’s death, and it’s about flashbacks and grief. As, obviously, is this piece.
http://www.angiekinghorn.com/2010/09/flashback/
I love how the bittersweet moment takes place in a bakery, the warm and comforting location makes the missing of your father even stronger. I felt like I was there with you, experiencing both the present and the pull of your memories.
It was so strange–the bakery part. It was if I’d been lulled into complacency by love and warmth and the smells of cinnamon loaves, and Grief saw an opportunity to slip in unnoticed.
Still getting used to it, 2 1/2 years later, the long spells of being fine and the sudden banana peels that send you tumbling.
Angie, this is the kind of memoir that grips. I can’t think of a single intelligent thing to say, because while mine is not the grief of a child for a parent, I know the huckster. And I know those peels.
Thank you, Cam. I’m sorry that you, too, know the huckster and his banana peels. But I guess at some point we all do.
Angie, you have such a gift for putting into words things I can only manage to feel. My Dad’s been gone since 1999 and the stinker called Grief still catches me with those blasted banana peels! Thank you for the telling!