Live, Laugh and...

A true story of a girl who just turned 11.

"Life is funny but it's not always a knee-slapper." Tracy Booher

It was a rainy Tuesday morning. Kind of like last week but wetter with those slow drops that tend to linger on your skin in bubbles that don't want to pop. Growing up in Arkansas, it was not unusual to see three or four pickup trucks fly by our house on Fox Pass Cutoff with great speed, as if they were finally going to get that raise at work. But in reality, they were trying to get to 7-11 for the breakfast biscuits which lay in the heated tray display dying a slow, unappreciated death. Wet roads never stopped them, only the cops which rarely patrolled this road, much to our father's chagrin.

It was also common on any random day of the week to see my sister sitting in a lawn chair, suspiciously close to the road with the pickups flying by, all the while blowing bubbles while singing Paper Roses by Marie Osmond. She was a grown woman with the heart and mind of a child in addition to a defiance level which would break the hardest of souls.

My older brother was looking forward to getting school out of the way so he could try to beat his own highest score on any number of Atari games. Or perhaps he would his play guitar, a talent he shared with our mother. Creative and kind, he's the kind of brother anyone would want to have.

` "Get your damned shoes on and stand by the road"...a phrase we heard every single morning before school and when he said to stand by the road, he meant we'd better stand so close we could feel those pickup trucks whisp the hair on our arms. Our dad was in a perpetual vortex of anxiety, afraid of us missing the bus due the issue of our sister, who would have to be coaxed into the car without the promise of a certain reward (Walmart). That took more work than is usually required of a couple of preteens before school, at least in our neck of the woods. Aside from having to milk a couple of goats before school, early morning is no time for psyching oneself up for a task such as this. And that's not even the half of what could potentially ensue.

"Some people feel the rain, others just get wet." -Roger Miller

I closed my eyes and made a wish...please, God, let me get that raincoat! That cute yellow raincoat, reversable, with tiny umbrellas printed on the underside. It was 1984 so kids looked forward to receiving tangible gifts like raincoats. Simple yet functional and I knew it was on sale so surely it wasn't too much to ask? Of course, my mama came through for me and I wore that thing all day long, even though it was warm and muggy. She told me that it would rain soon so naturally, I couldn't wait.

The day was filled with all the usual activities found at a kid's birthday party...cake, balloons, gifts, and of course, bubbles. Our sister was a bubble machine, fueled by great affection for the art and the knowingness that anything I got for my birthday would eventually be used as a bribe involving a certain missed bus. She played the game with precision and knew full well the fine art of manipulation. It was a great day and I appreciated how much mama put into this fantabulous event. She hadn't been feeling well for the past several months so to see her smiling and laughing was better than any raincoat. My eyes met hers for second and I could tell there was something amiss. There was a faraway look on her face, as if there was somewhere she needed to be. But then her face relaxed into that beautiful smile that always gave my heart instant peace. I still wished it would rain.

"Without rain, there would be no life." -John Updike`

Three days later, I stood outside on Tuesday morning, and never noticed the sound my beloved rain made on my new coat. Our sister wasn't blowing bubbles and the only voices I heard were the sounds of our dad yelling, chanting, rather, her name. "Pauline! Pauline! Pauline! I heard my brother crying, weeping, really, hands covering his face as if he was traying to press what was happening back into his head, and surely bargaining with God all the while.

As the paramedics walked by, I asked if she was going to be okay. Flashes of my brother and I trying to wake her, her pink satin nightgown, the only color in the room. She wouldn't wake up. I blew in her mouth like they did on St. Elsewhere, one of her favorite shows. A hollow yet violent rumble came from her lungs and that was something I knew I would always regret hearing. My brother was holding me and holding on to whatever was going to take us away from this room...the room that swallowed our mama up in the night...a faint smile on her beautiful lips. I gazed at that grey, cursed October sky and pondered how much of her would disappear. Slowly and intentionally, I closed my eyes and made another wish.

“I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.” – Abraham Lincoln

Paulina Moon was born on 11/11 at 11:11pm. My mama didn't disappear. My heart was never really broken forever. I finally grew out of that raincoat. And now, all these years later, rain fell on the window pain in a slow and irregular beat, with those big, plump drops that don't want to pop. I looked into my daughter's eyes and caught a glimpse of what I thought was gone forever. Then I realized, she had been there all along...

Tracy Booher

February 2024