Requiem [COMPLETED]

Kind of You to Let Us Know We're Being Tested

"Why are all the pine trees sick grandpa?"

"There's nothing wrong with them; they're called Tamaracks. They're evergreens, like pines, but  they naturally shed their needles every fall."

I thought about this; it brought to mind all the other things that had been said and done that day that weren't true. They're evergreens, except they're not green forever. Your grandpa is family, but he can't take good care of you. We're doing this because we care about you; people who love you most sometimes don't know what's good for you. Suddenly I was filled with anger, which became anger at the Tamaracks-- yet another thing that was a lie. I jabbed a finger at them, stubbing it on the window pane, tears welling up uncontrollably. "Imposter! Liar! I hate you!"

Grandpa snorted, though he eyed me like an unpredictable wild animal. "Those trees don't give a shit what you think of them." He stared out the window for a bit before adding: "Many things, and people, are untrue, and yet they still are, without any reference to or responsibility for any truth. Everything is unto itself." He looked sideways at me. "The only thing a body can do is be: most people can't even be true to themselves, or any other person. Man is made in the image of God, but cannot contain his strength."

It was not what I needed to hear, not on the way to a stranger's house where grandpa would leave us, perhaps forever. I felt I was falling and there was no end; grandpa would not comfort us when we were ordered away and consequently made no attempt to make it less awful. He made it clear that he wanted us here, yet he was casting us out to these people who demanded it. I had thought him all-powerful, and his lack of power to hold onto us was the most frightening part. Being little I was totally dependent on the adults around me and first momma, then grandpa, were disappearing.

We drove the whole way from the farm out near Fargo to a suburb of the Twin Cities without stopping, as if grandpa was rushing to get through the moment. Tamaracks filled the cracking parking lot in front of a low, brown, unlovable concrete building. Panic swelled in my chest with tears. Not yet. Not now. The fear of abandonment became reality. Just one more hour; don't go. Don't leave us here. Don't.

Grandpa ignored my tears. After getting out two suitcases out of the truck bed (our older sister carried her own in quiet affected calm), he ushered us in front of him towards the door. Across the parking lot the door opened and a lady with short curled hair came out to greet us. I didn't want to talk to her, so I missed everything she said to grandpa. I hung on his leg crying, praying as much as any four year old knows how to pray, for him not to leave me. The lady rubbed my back, trying to coax me to calm down and answer her but I was so hysterical I was focused solely on grandpa.

"Don't do this," was his response. When he broke my grip with his big knuckled hands and pushed me towards the woman I started screaming through my wracking sobs. "Don't leave me! Grandpa don't leave me! Don't leave me!" I broke free of her in time to chase his pickup out of the parking lot into traffic. He must not have been looking, because he drove on around the bend, and I laid down face-first on the hot road sobbing.

Sven says I caused a traffic jam on the frontage road; people thought I'd been run over. Sven told me I cried until I fell asleep exhausted curled in a ball on my sister's lap. Sven was still and quiet; he only cried once when we were alone in a little room with a cot, while my sister was in a meeting with our social worker. I had been trying to just breathe without sobbing, to survive.

When I asked him about it, when decades separated us from the event, he was hesitant to tell me. Finally he replied, "I know it was awful-- it WAS awful-- but... you didn't understand what was going on, or the reason for it. It was the way you said it... "Don't leave ME"... you kept sobbing it over and over, as if he was the only person who mattered. All three of us were in turmoil, though they'd promised us that we'd get to stay together, that they wouldn't split us up... it just made me feel even lonelier and more unwanted. As if you had said 'don't leave me with them.'"