Don't Forget to Write

Wisdom From the Youth

I needed fresh air and a break from the constant back and forth of the joyous holiday, so I joined Stacy and the dog in the back yard. The temperature was still lukewarm even though the trees were leafless and the skies held that seemingly permanent gray curtain of winter that held a daunting promise of precipitation. The smell of a burning pine drifted over from the neighbor's chimney. I inhaled deep, bringing the familiar scent to my lungs and letting the smoke calm my nerves. For a moment I was in my grandmother's home in Portugal, sitting on that blue and yellow striped couch while my grandmother was next to me on the recliner, and the fireplace in front of was crackling. We were both reading; her a Portuguese newspaper, me a novel, and although we were both in our own worlds, reading our own words, we were sharing that moment. She would look up at me whenever she finished an article and flash the slightest of smiles. There was a stack of logs next to the fireplace that I had chopped earlier that day, and they would last us for hours.

I opened my eyes and the memory (was it even a memory? Or a fabrication comprised of several hazy memories?) was gone. Stacy was looking at me quizzically. She wanted to know why I had closed my eyes and what I was thinking about, but she didn't ask.

We played fetch until the dog got tired and dragged his branch to a shady corner where he could chew it in peace. Stacy looked up at me. "Why are they unhappy?"

"Who?"

She pointed inside, through the window into the dining room where our family sat.

I glanced around the backyard, looking for the right answer. Was I any different from them, anyway? I drank just as much as them. But I drank because I liked it, not because I needed it, like them, I assured myself. It certainly wasn't to bury those seemingly unexplainable feelings of emptiness and loneliness and dread. Beyond that, I wouldn't end up at a job I hated like them. No. I would love engineering. Or, if I didn't, I would find a career that I did love. Right? Right. I wouldn't end up a prisoner to a meaningless occupation, trapped in a loveless marriage with kids who didn't respect me, yelling over the thanksgiving turkey while drinking my seventh glass of wine before 5 o'clock. I wasn't them.

But then, maybe I was. Maybe we all were.

I looked at Stacy, who was looking at the dog. "Maybe we're unhappy because, well maybe we lost something. Something that you still have. We got older and forgot where we put it, and instead of looking for it we've been trying to replace it, and then we pretend we always had it".

"You didn't lose it, whatever it is. Or, if you did it's not too far away. I think gramma used to say something like 'You always find what you need. Not always what you're looking for, but what you need.' She said God would help you find it. If you looked hard enough, anyway." She swallowed back a lump in her throat. Was she right? I hadn't meant to include myself in that category of unhappy people I called my family, but I had, subconsciously. If I thought about it, I guess I always knew I was unhappy. It was a learned trait from my folks, who had battled some serious adversities and depression in their life. I hadn't seen them happy very much, so it was hard for me to emulate happiness. But, maybe Stacy was right. Maybe I still could be happy, I could be different from the rest of my bloodline, I could get over tragedies and grieve in a healthy way and eventually, somehow, just be happy. Whatever the hell that meant. I knew it wasn't possible to be happy all of the time. But, I would try to lead a life that would at least bring many moments of happiness, and at least have a resting emotional center of "content" rather than my normal emotion of slightly sadder then I could be. I would do it. I'd be happy. "She was always happy, wasn't she? Grandma, I mean."

"Well, she wasn't always happy, but she always tried to be. I think that's what's important. That's what I remember of her. Just her smiling and laughing."

"Me too," she said. "It's getting hard for me to remember her sometimes. I can't remember her voice, and her face is getting fuzzy." She wiped her face and looked away. The tough little kid didn't want her big cousin to see her with tears in her eyes. "Is that bad?"

"No, it's not bad. It happens. Just remember the way she made you feel. That's the most important thing. Remember she loved you, and all of us, more than anybody else could."

Stacy nodded, then rested her head on my shoulder. After a while, she asked, "Are desserts out yet?"

"No, but I know where Tia hides them. If you stay quiet, we can steal some." She giggled and nodded her head. I picked her up and put her on my shoulders. "Don't ever grow up."