Shapes

TW: Family Death, Grief

“It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark.” I think about that quote now as I lay in bed, looking at the black ceiling. I had to do an essay on the Match Girl once, explain why Hans Christan Anderson would write it, and have the imagery meant. But, I don’t think of that essay or the grade I got, I think of my winter with my father. We sat in the cold, the snow underneath us and the sun high above us. I remember us waiting, my father telling me “A sunset in the winter? That’s the most beautiful thing you will ever see.” As we waited he told me stories, stories about my mother and the town we used to live in. And even if I was too young to understand why we didn’t live there anymore or why my mother had to go away, I listened. As the sun began to set the light framed his face, he was magical. 

And even though my hands were cold and my nose was red I didn’t complain. I only watched as the sun bounced off the snow and set around us, almost a perfect circle, almost. When the sunset, everything got quiet, almost like all the animals were watching and all the wind stopped, just for this moment. The purple that came near the end caught my breath in my throat and scared me to breathe, like even the tiniest breath could blow the color away. 

Then it was over. The color was gone, replaced by the cold and snow. Then my father was, leaving for work with tears in his eyes as he handed me to a stranger, hoping I only remembered the good and not this moment. His hope did nothing. I like to think that I’m keeping him alive by remembering. Maybe I am, maybe I’m the only one who knew that memory happened. Or, maybe I’m not, maybe a neighbor looked from their own trailer and saw a kid raising a kid, sitting in the snow. The only thing I know for sure is that he’s dead.

He’s not coming back, there will be no more winters in the snow or summers at the beach. There will be no more him. So when I lay in bed thinking about a random quote and making shapes in the dark of my ceiling, he comes to mind. Him dying young, me barely eighteen, an orphan. Or maybe I’m not, who knows? My mother might be dead and I will never know, or she could be alive. My father always said a moment of quiet came after my birth. Followed by a wave of anger when my father looked in my eyes and said, “She’s mine and I’m gonna keep her, no stranger gonna raise my blood.” My mother left the next day to leave with some family up north, we haven’t seen her since. 

And so, I grew up with no grandparents, no mother, and half the time, no father. But, when he was here it was magic. I remember him coming home with his boots muddy and his face with the impression of the mask he wore while welding. Who could have guessed that very same mask was incredibly hard to breathe in when a fire started? He didn’t have a will, not many people do at 33. It didn’t matter though, he didn’t have much to give away. All he had was his memories, which he passed down to me, which I remember now. 

Maybe the shapes in the dark of my ceiling remind me of his square jaw or the way his vowels become circular when he talked. Or maybe they remind me of the goldfish he got me when I was little with a triangular tail or even the way we would sit at the kitchen table until I learned the difference between a hexagon and an octagon. I come back to that octagon now, the same shape as the stop sign at the end of the dirt road leading to my home. “Now don’t you go past that sign, I want to be able to hear you from this porch.” Or when I snuck out the first time and walked down that road to that stop sign. When I stopped and looked at that sign for a good long time before heading back home, where he was waiting for me. That night he told me how he met my mother, the night he snuck out just like me, a night he wouldn’t trade for the world. Because I came out of it. He also told me that he doesn’t want me to stay here my whole life, and one day I’ll go so far away from that sign, but today wasn’t that day. All the shapes in the dark remind me of a moment with him, I would trade all the shapes in the dark for just one more. But, magic isn’t real. The way the snowlight framed his face wasn’t magic, just a trick of the light.

I can’t trade these shapes for more moments, only memories trapped in the dark. When they talk about losing a parent they talk about the shock or the grief, not knowing who to turn to, and all that. What they don’t talk about is the blame. When you're young you blame everything on your parents, every mistake and fight is obviously not your fault, it’s theirs. They say you grow out of that, that you realize how much they did for you and you bond more than you ever have. I’ll never get that. A shape that's beginning to make its way into the dark is a star. “You’ll always gonna be my star, trust me you ain’t gonna be shining if you don’t go to college.” I close my eyes to try and forget, but against my eyelids, I still see the shape. 

“You can’t tell me what to do, it's all your fault I got in anyway. I didn’t even want to apply!” The words came easy then, now I feel queasy knowing that I spent any time yelling at him.

“Darling, I love you. I know your gonna make a good decision.” He walked out of that house for one of the last times, off to the night shift. When he came home I had already made up my mind. I told him I loved him, but I had to make my own path. He was so disappointed, I knew he wanted more for me. He did everything for me and I still blamed him for everything. That night shift was his last. 

I open my eyes again, tears welling in the corners. I keep all the memories he gave me, even the bad. I keep the winters in the snow, the way he talked, the essay I wrote and still remember a quote to, the way he called me a star. They influence every decision I make. 

And so, I lay in my dorm room, far away from that stop sign. Yet, never far enough to forget.