Childhood Memories, Grownup Dreams

My eyes filled with tears and worry while I desperately retraced my steps in the last hour. I wished so badly that the library was empty or that I could just be left alone, undisturbed for the next half hour.

"Do you have a pen I can borrow?"

My worried thoughts were interrupted by a freckled face teen. I patiently stopped my search and handed a pen with care and consideration to her and then walked away briskly to continue my search. My heart flooded with pain and anguish, my mind was already trying to figure out how I would or could move forward and comprehend such a loss. I felt my soul being crushed in agony and despair and I was filled with an overwhelming emotion in my chest and throat. I silently screamed and cried inside my broken body while having to display outward professionalism.

"Excuse me, are you okay? Did you lose something?"

Again, interrupted. I looked up to see a woman with warm brown eyes and a friendly wrinkly face looking around the floor as if she was eager to save the day. "No, thank you," I replied, "I'm just getting ready to close up the library for the evening. In a half hour we'll be closing and I am ensuring that nothing is left behind by anyone." As the woman walked away, cane in hand, I glanced at my watch and felt the time crunch of having to announce to everyone to start finalizing their research, reading, writing, typing - all the studious activities because it was closing time. I knew that as soon as the library cleared, I had a mere forty minutes to tighten up, turn off the lights and lock up the bland historic building. The lack of time for the search was causing me to begin to feel nauseous and light-headed with worry and emotion. Matthew was the security guard who stayed every evening with me while I locked up so that he could escort me to my car that was parked the furthest from the main library doors under a light post with a flickering light.

It was approximately three years ago that my Irish Twin brother, Elias, and I celebrated our birthdays together and shared a gift exchange. "Happy 30th-31st birthday!" We raised a toast of cranberry juice while our loved ones surrounded us in joy. Elias laid in his hospital bed in his last days of stage four lung cancer. All of our childhood, we turned to one another for advice, to be each other's confidant and best sibling friends. Never in a million years would we have thought that we would be saying good-bye as young as we were.

Elias unwrapped his gift and was elated to receive a baseball autographed by an all time best Yankee shortstop, Derek Jeter. I knew that Elias would regift this to his son, Eli, before his heavenly journey. Eli was a handsome and energetic ten year old who loved playing baseball and loved watching his favorite baseball team play even more. I knew the joy this would bring to Elias' heart, just to see the excitement in Eli's face as he received the baseball from Elias' hand into his son's hands, was priceless.

"For me! Thank you dad! You're the best!", Eli exclaimed as his eyes met with Jeter's signature.

It was my turn to unwrap my birthday gift. I glanced at Elias as I carefully opened a blue jewelry box with a soft painting of a magnolia, my favorite flower. With a smile cheek to cheek and a joyful expression, I ever so gently lifted the white gold necklace and oval pendant. It was engraved with a sentimental message that read,

"A sister shares childhood memories and grown up dreams."

In this moment a whirlwind of memories flooded my thoughts and I couldn't help but cry and feel all the love and connection that we shared as children and grown ups. I put the necklace on and in a shaken voice said, "Elias, I will always wear this beautiful gift and always know that you're with me everywhere I go. You'll always be in and close to my heart" and squeezed the pendant tightly in my fingers. Elias reached his hand over to mine and in a faint voice said, "You're the best sis. Always. Love you."

I quickly sorted the books by genre. Horror placed here, Drama placed there, Science in the cart, computers turned off and disinfected. Romance accidently thrown in the Science cart, trash collected and other duties that were half done. All I could think about was finding my pendant. I was so upset with myself that I didn't realize when my necklace clasp broke and the pendant slipped off.

"What's wrong with you this evening Samaris?", Matthew asked with a concerned look. I couldn't speak, I just broke out sobbing. I was finally letting out what I was holding inside for the last hour or so. Matthew walked closer to me and placed his hand on my shoulder saying, "Hey, come on now, whatever it is - it'll be okay. Can I help? I've never seen you this way." I choked up and replied, "Matthew, my pendant that Elias gave me before he passed away, it's gone. I'm so scared that it's lost for good Matthew. We have to lock up the library soon and I just have to stay and find it." Matthew reassured me that he would stay with me to help me find the pendant. I was so grateful to Matthew and both of us began to search for the lost pendant.

Elias and I stood outside behind our house where a section of dirt defied the growth of grass. Elias grabbed a crooked stick and drew a large circle in the dirt and then pulled from his Levi's jean pocket a beige marble sack that held ten regular marbles and two large marbles. At nine and ten years old, playing Ringy, a marbles game, was the thing to do. I recalled observing Elias' hand. How he bent them to affix to the size of the marble and flung his thumb to create a powerful toss to knock a smaller marble out of the circle. He was so talented and so much better at aiming and controlling the marble than I ever was. Whoever lost this game would have to pull weeds later that day. Although I always recall losing to Elias, Elias would still help me with weed pulling or any other grueling loss.

Oh, those childhood memories.

Elias was a hard worker and decided that college wasn't for him. I always wanted to be a librarian because I enjoy reading and research. As we both entered adulthood and went to live in different states to create our own lives, we always made sure to visit one another at least three times a year. As Elias and I got married and had children of our own, our children grew up close to one another despite the distance. Elias became a general manager with his company and was financially successful. I was so proud of him. He had done so well for himself and his family and I was able to be a part of every milestone in his life. I became a librarian and loved teaching children and assisting my community. Every opportunity to vacation meant a trip to visit Elias and his family. For years, we traveled back and forth with our families to visit one another and to continue to create more memories and share grown up dreams.

Thirty minutes had passed after closing time. I felt so defeated and Matthew kept trying to reassure me that my pendant would be found. It was nearing the time to have to set the building alarm for the monitoring company. Wiping the tears from my face, I said, "Matthew, it's okay. I just have to accept that my pendant is lost for good. I just want to go home now and crawl into bed. I need to cry freely and just let my heart feel the break and loss." Matthew felt awful, but knew that I was right, the library alarm needed to be set.

I arrived home and pulled into the garage. I sat in my car in disbelief. I had to prepare myself to walk into my home and function for my family. I didn't know how I could even utter the words to my family that I had lost the one sentimental item that was given to me, my last gift ever from Elias. My heart was torn, bleeding inside as I hugged and greeted my children and husband. I tucked my head low as if I was preoccupied and exhausted at the same time. I ended my night early and walked into my bedroom and sobbed quietly.

"Beep, beep, beep", the most annoying sound ever - the alarm clock. Today, I felt like a zombie, disconnected from reality, still in disbelief of losing my precious pendant.

In a daze, I was snapped back to reality with the sounds of a toddler crying at story time. Anna was a librarian assistant who worked with me for six months. Anna was always so animated when she read books to toddlers. Bottles were abandoned by their waddling owners because they were so fascinated by Anna's quick reactions and raised voice when reading in character. Sometimes Anna would drastically range from one pitch to another that she would startle a toddler or two. Then the entire library would echo with the toddlers piercing cries. Mamas would quickly try to console their child and race out of the library bringing back the peace and quiet to the environment. Anna and my eyes would connect and Anna knew exactly what I was communicating, just the look alone was a thousand words. Anna could tell that something was bothering me, I wasn't the same. Anna noticed that I was looking down often, moving books around for no good reason, and shuffling items on the desk.

After book reading time, Anna, Matthew, and I circled up to chat as we normally did when there was down time. Anna learned about me losing a white gold pendant and why it had so much sentimental value. Throughout the day, all three of us kept our eyes open and shuffled books around here and there, scooted chairs and tables over slightly to take a peak underneath and we did that over again as if the pendant would magically appear.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was time for my lunch break. I grabbed my lunch bag and threw it around my neck like a side bag and walked to the break room. As I sat down to unpack my plain, boring salad and bottled water, I reached in the side pocket to grab my utensils. As I felt around to take out my fork, I felt something familiar, smaller and immediately abandoned the fork to pull out the oval metal object.

Elias ran into my bedroom and shouted, "Samaris! Why are you still asleep? Get up, you're going to miss the school bus!" I jumped out of bed confused and still half asleep exclaiming, "Elias help me, please help me find my shoes, hurry!" Elias broke out in laughter, "It's Saturday! Got you!"

Oh, the childhood memories and grown up dreams.