When I was younger, I wanted to be a postman. I thought delivering letters to people was important. I thought they would appreciate me and everyone would know my name.
After school I played video games with my father until my mother got home. We would play a game over and over again until we beat it. I learned the importance of seeing things through to the end.
When my parents would fight, I would sit far away on floor and cover my ears with my head buried in my lap. I lost a lot of tears sitting on the floor. I was so scared that fighting meant life would change.
I used to think about who I would choose and how the other person would feel. I never want to hurt people. But sometimes, we don’t get to choose.
I only knew my grandparents on my mother’s side. I loved my grandmother because my mother loved her. “Gooder Morning,” she used to say when I would come sit with her in the kitchen. She would make me pancakes with this old cast iron pancake pan. I held on to that pan, I still have it in my kitchen. I’ve carried it to 4 apartments now. I just wanted to hold on to that moment.
I would stay with them in an old green house in Idaho. I hurt myself once playing in the woods, as children do. But that day, my grandmother told my parents that I must be stupid because I was half black. Sometimes when adults speak, they assume that children don’t understand. But I held on to that too.
My grandfather was a man’s man. He was stoic but loved Rocky Road ice cream. We would watch westerns at night as a family because he liked watching westerns. I remember lying on the floor watching him admire his hero’s on the screen. Brave and charming gentleman, who used to tip their cap as a humble acknowledgement of gratitude. I wanted to be those men on the screen.
I think of my grandfather every time I smell a cigar. I miss that little town in Idaho, I think about going back all the time. That old green house that we used to stay in is gone now. So I tattooed it on my body. Nothing lasts forever except the things we choose to remember.
When my mother died, I spent a year seeing her on the street. Then after a while, I used to struggle to remember her voice. That used to make me sad and make me feel like a bad son. I think that made me start talking about her more, probably too much sometimes.
My father didn’t talk about her much after she was gone. That was the first time I saw someone truly heart broken. It’s scary to see your parent as people. Some people learn that the easy way, and have healthy relationships with their parents. I never had that with my dad, but I did everything I could to try and make him proud of me.
I held his hand when the doctor told him he had liver cancer. Something changed in that room when we realized there wasn’t much time left. I felt selfish for not wanting to be alone. I also felt guilty for not wanting him to suffer. This made me feel like a bad son too.
Before he died, we played video games like we used to. We didn’t talk much about life except when asked he if I understood he was dying. I hated him in those moments, but I knew what he was doing. He was still being my father and preparing me for life without him. He never raised me to shy away from reality.
When he died, my mother’s best friend was there for me like she always is. When my father was too broken to be there for me, she was. She kept our family together and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay that.
We cleaned out the apartment I grew up in together. All the pictures and videos of birthdays, and moments in Idaho that had fallen out of thought. I told them stories about all the faces we saw, all the moments that molded me. That was the first time since I left that that one bedroom apartment felt like home.
I found these letters and essays that my father wrote. One about how he was a heroin addict and one about how he cheated on my mother. All the things we didn’t talk about while he was alive. I guess we all have aspects of ourselves that we hide away from the people that look up to us. Things that we are ashamed of about ourselves. I wish I knew him better.
I read his writing when I miss him. It makes me feel closer to him as a person, not as the father of a child. It hurts me worse everytime I read them because not knowing made me feel betrayed. Maybe the things we hide away, are the things that really make us who we are.
I watch videos of them and their life before I was born. Two people in love. Two people figuring it out. It sounds cliche, but I think that’s the meaning to it all. We don’t have it figured out but we keep trying. There’s beauty in the struggle and it brings people together, especially people in love. It’s nice to hear my mother’s laugh.
I have a few more tattoos now. Memories I don’t want to forget. So many people have left in my life, others i’m so scared to lose. My friends have all grown up now and have grown in different directions. That’s a tough part about getting older but I think about them a lot too. We hold on to these things that tie us to moments in time. Not the ones that hurt but the ones that help us figure it out.
Like a pancake pan or old pieces of writing. Pictures of the lives of young lovers and the adventures they shared. Smoke disappearing from the air but lingering in your nostrils. Or ink on skin that remind us of all the people that made us. And all these things we hid away, that really make us who we are.