A Child's Scribble

My niece was waiting anxiously and impatiently for me to give her the folded note. She remembered the paper; she was about 4 when she gave it to him but she remembered. I was surprised that she did. I didn’t remember it although I was there too.

“Goddamn it. It was just here!” I shouted, frantically searching my pockets for the missing thing. I couldn’t imagine where it was. I was a chronic checker and had felt the small paper about a hundred times on the bus. But maybe that one time, that last time, it fell out of my pocket and it was on the floor being stepped on.

She was looking at me horrified. How could I lose it when it meant so much? Her dad’s best friend gave it to me to give to her and I had lost it.

I searched my jean pockets and my other coat pocket. I had a habit of switching pockets constantly; I could never keep anything in one place. It was indicative of my personality, as if a stalker was following me and I needed to change it up so he wouldn’t know my routine. But it wasn’t like that. It was just my quirk.

Her eyes were huge and her mouth was open. I thought of describing how he gave it to her dad and how her dad gave it to me to give to her, how it felt to have it, what was on it but I had done all that already. And then I remembered I had a bag with me. I had thrown it on the table when I came it. Surely it was in there.

I went over and felt in the side pocket and there it was. My heart settled. I took it out and cupped it in my hand and exhaled. She was watching my every move.

I placed the paper in her hand, the paper that she had drawn on and given to her “uncle” thirty years before. The one that her “uncle” told her he would always carry with him, till the day he died. And he did. Right in his wallet.

She held it for a few minutes, feeling the warmth of my hand on it. Then she looked at it, folded so neatly into a small tight packet. She may have been wondering if she folded it or if he did. She tentatively started to unfold it, like origami, until it was a complete sheet of paper.

I love u Uncle Barry it said in a child’s hand, misspelled and awkwardly positioned. There was a stick figure drawing and her name Melissa, also misspelled and awkward with the M above the other block letters that were sloping down. She folded it back up neatly, exactly how it was, and put it in a box on the mantel of her fireplace. Then she asked if I wanted to go to lunch.

That was it?

My family wasn’t good with discussing difficult subjects. But this was beyond what I expected. I thought she would be hysterical. I thought I would have to sit with her and process death and dying and feelings. Even though she was in her 30s, she never really lost anyone close. She had lost her grandmother, her mom’s mom, a couple of pets, the pets were more of a painful loss than the grandmother, but she loved Uncle Barry although she hadn’t seen him in years. He was her dad’s best friend. Always a presence in her life through her dad. He made us laugh and he had a phenomenal memory. He had been our neighbor growing up in the Bronx. My niece knew this, she was closed to her dad. Yet, she wasn’t reacting.

Should I force a reaction? Maybe she was just suppressing her feelings. Or should I trust that she would process it in due time, on her own terms? She could be overly sensitive but also tended to avoid ugly realities. As many of us do.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked as she grabbed her coat.

“That’s okay,” she said.

Maybe she had already dealt with it when her dad told her that Barry had passed away. I was sure he told her how we sat there and talked to him the day before he died, how we reminisced about the old neighborhood, the games we played in the streets of the Bronx, the jobs they had together. Barry’s memory did not failing him at the very end even though his speech was halted. She must’ve felt it then, in her dad’s cracking voice. Or when I reiterated it on the phone, when I told her I would make the trip out to Jersey from Manhattan to give her the piece of paper that my brother entrusted me with as he made his way back to Omaha, where he worked and lived.

Or maybe she was just in total denial. She suffered from depression so maybe she couldn’t allow it in.

I didn’t have any kids of my own and didn’t have a very deep relationship with her so I wasn’t sure if I should tread lightly. Her mom and dad would have. I knew that. They treated her like she was a breakable piece of fragile glass. They overprotected her, coddled her. I didn’t think it was in her best interest but should I be the one to open up that can of worms? But on the other hand, this was my opportunity to connect with her in a real way. To bond with her.

“Sit down for a second,” I said as she reached for the door.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“I know. I am too. It’ll just take a minute,” I said, mentally preparing myself for the proper words that I couldn’t find.

She sat with her coat on, looking at me blankly, expressionless.

“It’s okay to feel,” I said. “It’s okay to cry.”

“Glad you are giving me permission,” she said.

“You don’t need my permission, but I think you need some sort of release,” I said.

“Okay,” she said and she got up. “Can we eat now?”

I got up and got my coat and my bag. I couldn’t force her to feel. I knew that. But I felt disappointed anyway.

As I reached for the door she stood next to me, waiting for me to open it.

“I can’t believe he kept it,” she said.

“I know. That’s the kind of guy he was,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “He was such a nice man.”

We headed to her car. When she put the key into the car door, I could see her forcing an unnatural, creepy smile on her face to counteract any tears that might leak out. I put my hand on her back and we got in the car. I could see her face relax as she started the car and one single tear released.