The Before

Mama would zigzag through the crowded sidewalk and tear across the street, dragging me behind and creating a gust like I was a kite she was trying to make take flight, but you... you always slowed your pace to keep with mine and held my hand so gently. You'd smile down at me and give the occasional squeeze to let me know you knew I was there and that you were happy I was. It felt as if there was an invisible thread connecting your heart to mine. Even today, if I close my eyes and can manage to quiet the churning inside for just a moment, I can still feel your giant hand wrapped around mine.

That was the before. There's always a before.

It was a Tuesday. If you asked about the proximate 1300 other Tuesdays I've lived through in my twenty-five years I wouldn't have the faintest notion what they contained, but that particular Tuesday is seared forever into the delicate folds of my cerebral cortex. Every sound, every smell, every detail can be recalled in an instant. It's a memory I can't escape even on the other six days of the week.

We took a different route that morning. Usually we would cut through the park, sometimes stopping at the playground so you could spin me on the roundabout until I'd stumble and fall, laughing and drunk with dizziness. I don't know which of us thought it was funnier but I always suspected it was you. That day we were headed to the donut shop on the corner, the one with the grumpy owner, me for a sprinkled glazed and you for a creepy Krueller as you always called them. I guess you thought that was funny, too.

You were wearing your new red basketball shoes and kept jumping up to dunk every time we passed a lamp post.The walk seemed interminably long because of the heat. I could feel the sun blistering my skin and my shoes melting into the pavement. The stench of garbage rotting on the curb invaded my nostrils. I pretended I was underwater and held my breath, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, but the urge to inhale was too strong and I shot up to the surface. That's when I heard the screeching tires.

It happened so fast. Three men jumped out of a blue car. They didn't even stop to turn the engine off. I thought they were your friends because of the way they came rushing right towards you, but you squeezed my hand so tightly I could feel the fear pulsating through your fingers. One of the men called out a name I'd never heard before, but it seemed like you had because you suddenly pushed me out of the way and sent me flying through the air. I fell to the ground, my cheek scraping the burning asphalt. I heard you yell something, then covered my ears as the bullets rang out, ricocheting off bricks, shattering glass, decimating your flesh, organs and bones. This time I held my breath for real.

They say I didn't speak for more than a year after you died. Not a sentence. Not a syllable. I lost my words. One by one, they seeped from my brain in a steady flow like the blood seeped from your body. It seemed everything I knew about the world had changed and words no longer served a purpose. Mama said that year was the loneliest she'd ever been, with you being dead and me being mute. I remember she slapped me once really hard across the face just so she could hear me cry, but even my cries were silent. She said she always felt bad about that. There was a kind of peace in the blankness of my mind, but one word had survived the verbal exodus. It swirled around in confusion, searching for a solid perch to land. Reaper. The man who shot you called you Reaper.

Mama insisted every time I asked that it had all been a tragic mistake. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the bullets were meant for someone else... some gangster, some lowlife, some thug named Reaper. That's the story I was told and the story I believed for most of my childhood, but as I grew older and replayed that day over and over in my mind, there was one nagging thought I could never set loose... when the man called you Reaper, you reacted like you'd been called that name before. I realized that although I knew you my entire life, I had known only known you a tiny fraction of yours. I needed to know what was the before.

Walt Whitman wrote in Song of Myself, 'I am large. I contain multitudes.” I know that's true of everyone, but it seemed especially true of you. To me, you were the fun and adoring dad, but I soon discovered there was a much darker side to your story. A story you paid for with five years of your life and one that you desperately tried to distance yourself from.

It's hard for me to imagine you were once like those men in the blue car. How do I reconcile the dad, who sat with me on the pink carpet of my bedroom playing endless games of Chutes & Ladders, with the man who broke into houses, sold drugs, and robbed Mom-and-Pop shops at gunpoint? I think about how much suffering and terror you must have caused, but it still doesn't seem fair that you should be defined by the worst things you ever did. I know they're a part of who you were but you were so many things. You were multitudes. You tried hard to be better. You went to night school and got your GED. You got a real job working construction, coming home tired and stinky every night but always with a smile. You were a good husband, an incredible dad, and you made sure I knew I was loved.

The day you were gunned down was a defining point in my life. It was the end of the before. In the years since, I've come to learn that there can still be an after. As I slowly emerged from my wordless cocoon, I found a secret place for the pain and a new space for joy. You're a big part of who I've become. I don't think you'd recognize me if you saw me today but I think you'd be proud.

I haven't been back to this spot since that day. I've thought about it a million times, but it's taken this long to build up the courage. I don't know why I was so scared or what I expected to find. It was the last moment we spent together on this earth. Maybe I thought I would feel your presence lurking in the ether, but I don't feel you here at all. The outline where your body bled has vanished as if your death never happened, as if you never existed. But I am here so I'm living proof that you did.

I'm grateful to you for saving my life. I would never admit it to anyone else, but there were times when I wished those bullets had taken us both. Then I wouldn't have had to live all these years with this incomprehensible loss. Those are the bad days. Most days I'm happy to be alive. I just wish you were too.

The donut shop is still here. The grumpy owner is gone but the donuts are as good as I remember. I ordered a sprinkled glazed for me and a creepy Krueller in your honor. I miss you.