Michelle

Wednesday, May 18, 1994
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Today was my birthday. I turned 8. We had a big party at Mimi and Pop’s house. My mom made carrot cake with raisins and cream cheese icing. It was so good. I opened all my presents and played with my cousins. Then Pop took me out into the garage. I love how it smells in there. I was 8 he said so I needed to start learning things. He showed me the band saw and gave me a block of wood. We practiced straight cuts and curved cuts and diagonal ones too. Then he taught me about screws and we attached the pieces together. He picked a pencil out of the pot and began to write my initials and the date, but he fell over before he could finish. I don’t know what happened. It was like he fell asleep and I couldn’t wake him. I got my mom and told her and then everything went all crazy. She said it was something called a heart attack. The big van with flashing lights came and took Pop away. I hope he’s ok. I love him very much.
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My vision blurs at my naiveté. Forty years later, that day remains vividly projected onto my memory. The words within my journal don’t do the smells and the sounds and the feelings justice. I finger the wooden creation. Why did I decide to clean my attic? Every death I’ve encountered since then comes to the forefront of my conscience. I remember his funeral. The wet of the tears sliding down my face. The dry of the ashes slipping through my fingers. Everything was falling that day.
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I don’t light candles on a birthday cake that night. The wooden screen door slams behind me as I step onto the porch. I flick my lighter and hold it to the last Marlboro in the carton. The bright red ember dangles in front of my face, the brightest spot in the black of night. I fondle object in the dark. I know its curves by heart.
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My cigarette burns out. I take the lighter to the object next. I light a corner and watch it burn on a ceramic dinner plate. It smolders. I can feel the R and the S disintegrate before my eyes.
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In the morning I scoop up the ashes and the two screws. They slip through my fingers into a Ball jar that now sits on the window sill over my kitchen sink.