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Bored while waiting for the Light to appear so she can die, a woman looks back. |
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Most people don’t think they’ll die when they go out to get their mail. I know I certainly didn’t. I always thought I’d get nice and old, start forgetting things and all that, then die. Maybe in my sleep. That would’ve been nice. But this wasn’t so bad. I hadn’t expected to be one of those people with an out-of-body experience. Not that anyone would ever find out about it. Looking down at my body, lying motionless in the street, a piece of mail still in my hand, I knew that I wasn’t going to be returning to it. No way. I didn’t even want to. The thought of any recovery made me cringe. Well, I would’ve cringed if I could, but you get the idea. Noticing that what my hand held was one of my larger over-due bills, the one from the lawyer (who was horrible by the way), I felt a smug satisfaction that he was going to get a loss on me. I didn’t have any family to worry about my bills, except my ex, but good luck getting anything from him. He had all my money anyway. Bastard. Everything had started out so well. Hell, everything had been essentially idealistic since the day I was born. So how did I end up here, happily floating above my body and waiting for the proverbial light to show up so that I could walk to it? I’m not really sure. I certainly wouldn’t have foreseen this. Actually, I would have been incredulous if I had known. Doesn’t everyone say that? Oh well, I’m dead, I can be cliché if I want to. Who cares anymore? I was always afraid of being cliché, unoriginal. Unoriginal was bad. It was boring, dull, monotonous, and I think there’s half a dozen other words I could use. You know, I really thought the light would be here by now. Was the Angel of Death, or whatever angel is in charge of it, on break? Hello, I’m here, ready to die, come and get me. Can angels be late? It doesn’t seem like they could be. After all, what excuse could they have? It’s not like they can claim bad traffic. How do they get around, anyway? Maybe some sort of supernatural highway? More importantly, why am I wondering about this when I’m dead? Isn’t this the part where I should have some revelation about my life? Maybe a synopsis? The whole “life flashing before your eyes” bit? Oh, right, that’s when you come close to dying, not actually dying. My bad. But seeing as I am stuck in limbo until the Light shows up and it’s not much fun to watch people standing over my body, I might as well take a trip down memory lane. Perhaps I can figure out how I ended up so damned unhappy. ___________________________________________________________ My first memory was of the first day of school when I was four. It wasn’t my first day of school, but my older brothers’, Jack and Thomas. They were six and seven. My poor mother. I was so happy that they were gone. It meant that I had everything to myself. I got all the toys, all the space, and most importantly, all of Mama. It wasn’t like I was neglected or ignored, even at that age I made that impossible, but Mama’s attention was frequently commanded by their various bumps, bruises and general noise making. I don’t think that Jack and Thomas were out the door one minute before I grabbed her hand and insisted on a tea party. She probably had a lot of things t do, but she came. We sat outside on the back porch, just her, me, and my dolls, the Mrs. Dottie and Mrs. Annie. Mrs. Annie was a Raggedy Ann doll and Mrs. Dottie wore a polka dot dress, so at that age I hadn’t developed my aversion to the unoriginal. It was all prim and proper, very girly. I hit my tomboy stage later. At that time, I was in little girl heaven, having quiet tea with Mama. Now that I look back, she was preoccupied and not very engaged. Now I know why, of course. That was right before she found out for sure that she was pregnant with what would become my sister. I think she knew that day though. Now I wonder what she was thinking then. Was she happy? Did she want Lucy, or was another baby the last thing she wanted? I never asked her, later in life. I hadn’t cared. Babies were never part of the equation of my life. But that day, I was oblivious to the complexities of human emotion. After our tea, I helped her make cookies. At least, I did what I thought was helping. I remember handing her ingredients, and wrestling with a bowl far too large for me while trying to mix the dough. I’m quite sure I got flour every where. Mama was patient though, helping enough to get it done while letting me think I had done it all. She even let me eat some of the cookie dough, which to this day I regard as one of the most important food groups. I think I napped after that. I still needed naps then, even if I fought it. It wasn’t until college that I came to appreciate them. I do remember waking up to the raucous noises my brothers started making as soon as they walked in the door. Clutching Mrs. Annie, I went down the stairs and saw them grab the cookies I regarded as mine. They hadn’t noticed me; they were both too busy trying to talk over the other in telling Mama about school. I barreled straight for them, screeching as only indignant four-year-old girls can, “Those are my cookies! I made them!” Maybe that’s why I never had kids. I was subconsciously afraid of having a little me. Any way, going back to my memory, I was all set to hit them with Mrs. Annie and make them put back the cookies. Mama, having excellent reflexes by that time, successfully intercepted my reckless and foolhardy attempt to take both my brothers on. Setting me on her lap, she asked me, “Do you really want all the cookies to yourself?” Putting on my best pout, I nodded, but then reconsidered. “You can have some Mama.” With a benevolent smile, she gently said, “What about Daddy when he gets home? It would make him happy to have a cookie that his princess made for him.” That made me pause. I adored my Daddy and would do just about anything to make him happy. “Daddy can have some too.” That earned a small nod from Mama. “What about your brothers? Wouldn’t they feel bad if everyone got cookies but them?” Being lead by her careful guidance, I relented and cuddled up against her. “I guess they can have some of my cookies too.” She gave me a big hug then, and I loved it. Jack and Thomas, impatiently quiet for that exchange, started munching on the cookies and started back up on their days at school. I don’t recall much more about the day, except that my Daddy was happy to have his cookies that I proudly presented to him when he got home that night. There isn’t much to look back on for some time. I just recall some of my feelings during the months that Mom was pregnant. I was conflicted, flipping between happy expectation and sullen resistance to the idea. Sometimes I saw the approaching baby as a new doll I could play with and couldn’t wait for it to be born. Other times I saw it as a threat to my positions as the baby of the family and only princess in my daddy’s heart. I didn’t want to be dethroned from my exalted position. I was too young to understand that my parents didn’t have a finite amount of love and parenting, that even if I wasn’t the only princess, I was still a princess. |
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