Unbottled

Unbottled

The Millet-Guidry Funeral Home on Airline Highway is drab. Its floral wallpaper and severely broken-in pastel sofas instantly tell my brain that it’s time to get upset if I’m not upset already. I have been four times in the past three years. If I ever have to go again, someone will have to drag me in. During my last conversation with my Paw-Paw, I made sure to memorize his every word. It was staggering to hear his voice, and though it did not have the same flow or clarity as it used to, it was still Paw-Paw. I had been avoiding calling him for so long.

He didn’t give me a chance to ask how he was feeling; instead, he went straight into saying, “The most important thing, and I want you to remember, it’s write what you feel.” I have difficulty getting my thoughts clearly into words and conversations, and I often sound awkward when talking about my feelings, but for some reason, I believed that he understood a certain part of me that no one had. It was a concise, but powerful conversation. I found myself wishing that he were able to talk longer and also wishing at the same time to just hang up so I could cry. That was the last time I talked to him, the last time I heard him arrange his sentences so poetically. 

My dad’s side of the family always goes to my Aunt Maria’s house after these funeral ordeals. People eat, talk, drink. It’s like a typical family party except we’re all wearing black and though we talk about work, school, and sports, we’re all sad and ready to go home. Towards the end of the night, my aunt gave me a case of CDs. “These were your dad’s and I thought you might want them.” A few CDs. No big deal. I’m getting pretty good at this. During the ride home  I casually flipped through them. My mom tilted her head toward me and said, “I’ll never forget how he gave away my original Band on the Run album. When we first moved I had it, then one day I have all of this Elvis crap that I don’t listen to and my album is gone. ” Next thing we knew my mom and I were feeling bereft and outraged because we didn’t have the original Paul McCartney album, yet we’re shaking our heads and laughing because we know it’s not that important. Just as I thought I was a pro at handling this, I see Jim Croce with the red and green cover. I close the case, put it down by my feet, and save it to play later when mom is sleeping.

If I could save time with the people I’ve lost in a bottle… I just would. And it would be in the bottles that Paw-Paw would find at our family camp in Amite. The royal blues, the deep turquoises, the almost perfectly clear, and every shade in between. I would save time, as much of it as possible, in the multiple varying shades and shapes of the bottles on the top of Paw-Paw’s bookshelf. I’d save time, maybe: but I wouldn’t change it. I would change the fact that I’m still awake. I was doing fine all day. I didn’t have to be dragged into the funeral home. I didn’t cry at the sight of  the CDs. But I’m thinking too much. It’s time to put the Jim Croce CD back in the case, turn off my lamp and just sleep. 

The first thing that I’d like to do is to put a for sale sign in the front yard right now. It’s time to leave these ten-miles-of-driving-past-cowfields-just-to-get-home behind me. I catch myself sometimes running wild and fast into my future. In the midst of looking at houses, picking out paint colors, and making to-do-lists, I can’t help but to occasionally turn my head to peek at what I’m leaving behind. I’m leaving behind the square of countertop underneath the spice cabinet. The exact spot where I was sitting when my dad taught me how to whistle. Late the other night when mom was sleeping, I sat on that countertop, whistled as loud as a whisper, and let myself trail off where my mind was taking me. My eyes wandered to the opening into the living room, and everything around me started to spin. Instantly I was almost as high as the ceiling fans on my sea foam green bean bag chair and you, Dad, are my “Magic Carpet Ride” again. You’re underneath me, spinning me around. Your voice resonates through the room while you sing “A Whole New World.” I’m Princess Jasmine, and mom is smiling below at us while I fly. I spin slowly on back into the silence of the kitchen. It’s a whole new world now.

Just as my legs started to hang awkwardly over the bean bag chair, the manpower to my magic carpet ride was no longer in close reach. Dad, you never hid your tears as you drove me home. Your tears would come routinely as the sun was setting, and we would get to Luke Street. Then Mark, then Mr. Jim’s convenient store, then Matherne, then finally your “good ole 123 Pleasant Valley.” Mom would be working in the garden. You’d fly out of the truck like you were home again and head straight to pet the dog lying in the grass, enthusiastically saying “Hey Gin!” I’m not sure if you ever noticed, but you and Ginger have a lot of similar qualities. Mom says that you both were “restless indoors.” I was two years old when we found her roaming in the spillway. Though we gave her food and a warm house to sleep in, she would run off and kill rabbits and roll in the mud. She had a boyfriend on Dixie street. You had a woman in Norco.

I got home from school last year and just sat in the grass and rubbed my hand gently over her shedding red fur. Usually I’d just park in the garage, head straight in the house, take off all of the jewelry that I’ve been lugging, and head for the coffee pot. This day, I got out of my car and into the grass, saying softly, “Hey Gin.” For some reason, tears started to run down my face. I felt close to you. 

Two weeks passed. We couldn’t have those moments outside anymore, Ginger. Just like you couldn’t chase after the UPS trucks and motorcycles, and you could’t accompany me on my jogs. I could see your crushed spirit through your cataract eyes as you limped around the house aimlessly. I could have told you to save everyday ‘til there’s no more left, because eternity passes away. You didn’t belong in the house with Entertainment Tonight floating around your ears. You weren’t meant to live long enough to lose your essence. Your days ran out, and while I needed to go jogging for bikini season, all I wanted was just to spend them, all of your last days, with you. 

“If I could go back and do it all again, I would still want a daughter…and she would still be you.” That’s what a Hallmark card you gave me a few years ago said. You underlined “you” and signed it “Love Your Dad.” You like Hallmark cards. There’s quite a few in this green shoe box that I can’t help but pull out from time to time. I can see you scrutinizing the masses of them at Walgreens. Bending down in those faded, old light blue jeans to check the bottom rows in case you missed the perfect card. I look at the clock. The phone’s about to ring because it’s around 6:30, you’re going to ask me how my day was, hint for details and stories about school, friends, homework. This time I’ll tell you everything. I won’t be boring like before and say “fine same as any other day.” I’ll get a call, but it will be a solicitor, or a politician message, or the grass cutting man. If I could go back I’d make days where I could tell you all about my day last forever. 

Mom, I used to consistently wish that you and dad would get back together by some streak of magic. I still wish for you, Mom. Remember that poem I wrote about you? I had that line that said “how it took you seventeen minutes to pick out lettuce.” You said, “you’re exaggerating it did not take me seventeen minutes to pick out lettuce.” It did. I changed the poem for you regardless, from seventeen to eleven. Not accurate, but still extreme. It’s difficult for me to think of you then put it into words because you are still here. If words could make wishes come true I would just follow Paw-Paw’s words, “write what you feel.”

I’d save every day like a treasure if I were ever able to realize that they all are a gift. The theme of my eighth grade retreat was Find Your Treasure. We all were given a small plastic treasure chest and were told to really think about what we treasure in life. We had to write them down on a small square of paper, fold it up, then stick it in the treasure chest. Mom. Friends. Family. Catholic Education. God. I remember sitting there as my mind raced. Dad, I was so mad at you. I thought, He doesn’t deserve to be on this list. Looking back, I can’t even remember why I was so mad. A month later I pulled out the treasure chest and with guilt eating away at my pride and hurt from ignorance and fresh loss, I wrote your name at the bottom. I put Granny’s name next to yours under the same bullet to make it look as if I wrote them on the retreat. I would go back if I could to that moment and really make myself treasure each day. And then again I would try to remember why I was so mad at you, I would realize how utterly stupid the reason was, and take those last few precious days and I would spend them with you, riding around with no specific destination, spending hours trying to get the perfect animal out of the crane game machine, and stopping in the middle of the road to watch the sunset as we ate Chick-O-Sticks. 

You knew one song on guitar, “Sweet Melissa” by the Allman Brothers, but your version was just an A chord that slid carelessly down the frets. You wanted to learn more but there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them. You were no musician, but you sang almost as much as you spoke. I’ve been playing for five years, but I still can’t play “Sweet Melissa” like you. 

It’s pouring outside, but I’m stuck in this humid bubble of a car, and I don’t even care. Having thoughts of you, Dad, is like one of those electrical shocks I get on an escalator, doorknob, or the uncovered springs on a trampoline. Remember when John Mayer came on the radio and you gave me that look? That - you’re about to have to give whatever I want you to do, listen to, or watch your undivided attention or else you’ll die from deprivation - look. I could sense it, another you-can-miss-school-so-you-can-watch-Schindler’s List-with-me situation. But  you just said “Oh Lauren, I love this song,” and turned the volume up, and sang “Daughters” to me while your Garfield action figure stuck on the window watched the trees pass by. Your eyes caught mine, and I instantly felt guilty and claustrophobic even though the windows were always cracked open.You know you didn’t even sing the right lyrics. “Maybe it’s got nothing to do with me” was officially changed to “My baby’s got nothing to do with me.” I remember saying softly “that’s not true” while looking down at the floorboard. Your eyes smiled, and you let out a short laugh. Its playing on my iPod in my sticky, hot car. You must have made this pop up on shuffle, right? My seat belt is weighing me down like the heavy, bulky bib at the dentist’s office. It continues to rain, and I don’t want to turn the windshield wipers on. I’m letting it all soak in. 

I’ve looked around enough to know that old people are very accepting. I was at a rest stop, and I saw an old couple walking back to their car. The wife was wearing a yellow shirt, and the man was wearing gray pants and had on yellow suspenders. The husband went all the way to the driver’s side and opened the door for his wife, then walked, slowly but very surely, back to the passenger side to slide in the car. Undoubtedly, the man did not pick out matching suspenders to match his wife’s shirt that day. She definitely coordinated that color scheme. Did he fight? Did he argue? No, at eighty something years old he doesn’t care what he wears. He actually might like the matching idea. And he wasn’t driving. The wife was. Does he feel less masculine because she was driving? Maybe, but he doesn’t show it, and he probably never will. He is accepting of his lifestyle and still has the desire to open his wife’s door all the way on the other side of the vehicle. Will I ever be this accepting in my life? Probably not. How could I when I refuse to use a light weight bowling ball, even if my fingers slide out of the larger ones. Will I ever be able to just eat a piece of pizza without dabbing the grease off first? Or will I ever be able to keep my mouth shut and not get defensive when people are spewing their opinions that “there will never be a woman President of the United States?” That’s a joke right? 

It’s those cheesy lines like “you’re the one I want to go through time with” that make me question who, and how many people, I’ll be thinking of while on my death bed. 

If I had a box just for wishes and for all of the adventure stories that I have with my mom, the box would be a monstrosity of a box. Actually it would probably be in numerous shoe boxes that I’d stack on the top shelf of my closet which contain extra shirt buttons. One time we ended up getting lost in Jacksonville, Florida. I was hungry, and I was starting to turn mean. “Where do you want to eat?” “What do you feel like?” “Where should we stay the night?” I had no idea, and I wished my mom would stop asking me so many questions because I couldn’t make a decision. I just wanted her to decide, like always, but she always wants to do whatever I want to do. All of the radio stations were nothing but static except for Celine Dion, and I couldn’t handle her serenading through my starvation.

We drove around for a while, then eventually decided to eat at what looked like a safe choice. A basic place with a sign that said something about having good pizza. What we thought would turn out to be a cute beachy town was really just a bunch of middle-aged men wearing Wrangler cowboy belts, tight band t-shirts, and as my mom said “Pocahontas looking necklaces.” There was a fresh autumn breeze outside so that, combined with our desire to scope out this odd town, led us to eat outside. We sat at the table, each shamelessly pointing out our own discoveries of the strange town with strange people. The next day, our adventures extended to Savannah, Georgia, where we observed our middle-aged receptionist at the bed and breakfast dance frenziedly, break dance style, to Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4”  on the radio. We laughed the entire drive home.

The trust that I have in my mom extends from my life to her altering my clothes. We regularly talk in accents, watch previews for hours when we can’t decide what movie to watch, find a way to make low-carb brownies when we are dying with only almond milk and flax seeds in the house, and co-sign numerous guest books, our names always on the same line.

And dreams that are really emotionally unrealistic have never come true to me. I can dream that I am constantly emotionally composed but I’m not. I cry at the dog pound, I cry when I’m exhausted and up late doing homework, and I cry during every single Disney movie. Whatever made me think that I could just be normal in situations like this? It’s nine o’clock on a Tuesday. Mom never gets home this late. I pace around the house, sweating. I call Granny, and as it’s ringing I tell myself to act nonchalantly. “Oh hey Granny, what have you been up to? Well, that’s good. Hey, have you heard from my mom? No, I know it’s weird that’s why I called because she never gets home this late. Have you heard from her today? Oh okay. Alright, you’re probably right she’ll be home soon. I’ll call you when she gets here.” I pace around again, and then I force myself to sit on the sofa. Think think think. I can’t think; all I can see in my head is that we’ve been fighting a lot lately and I feel sick. Thoughts of her being in a car crash swarm around me. Where could the car crash have happened? Was she killed instantly or is she in the hospital dying? The police are looking at her cell phone as it rings and says “Lauren” on the screen, and they won’t answer it because they don’t want to tell me. My heart’s throbbing out of my ears. I’m to the point where I can admit that I have gotten past many difficult times in my life, but that’s only because my mom was with me. Gorilla Glued to my side, holding my hand, wiping my tears, reassuring me that everything is okay. And everything is always okay because she is always right there with me. I cannot go through a single moment without her. My eyes are hot, rapidly collecting tears, and they push out as I close my eyes. I can almost feel the comfort of her gentle hug; the exact placement of her arms on my back, and her soft voice saying “shhh” and telling me it’s going to be okay. I go in her room and stuff my face into her pillow. It smells like Mom. I let myself cry. Then clean myself up. 

After this excessive agony, I realize that today is Tuesday, the night of Mom’s business dinner. I hear the familiar slide and click of the top lock, and as my mom walks in the door, I have to hold myself back from hugging her because she might sense something has upset me today. She comes in, and I ask about her dinner. She tells me details, like who said something to piss her off, who sat where. We talk as we’re in the kitchen and she’s heating up the leftovers that she brought for me because “she was thinking about me and felt guilty” that I wasn’t having dinner with her. She doesn’t know how guilty I feel. 

Two weeks later. Dad’s side of the family all-girls-except-for-my-gay-cousin-Brandon-and-his-boyfriend-Brandon, paint party at Aunt Maria’s. We’re all having fun, catching up, and avoiding senseless small-talk because we’re not at a funeral or celebrating a major holiday. Just like my thoughts were a queue, my Aunt Valerie says, “We were cleaning out Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw’s house and have a box for you. Stuff we thought you might like and stuff of your dad’s. It says ‘Lauren’ and it’s in the corner over there.” I’m paralyzed, but I act thankful “Oh, okay thank you.” I’ve been working on this for five and a half years. No big deal. I’ve fought past the “Oh, look, if this isn’t Pat” and “Look, she has Pat’s eyes” comments. This, now, this is just a box. I don’t even have to open it tonight. It’s late when I get home, and I park in the driveway so I won’t wake up mom with the garage door.  I drop my painting and my purse all over the place trying to find my keys. The box weighs fifty pounds. I put it in the living room while I change to my pajamas and wash my face. I lie down in my bed, but I’m pulled out of it just as quickly. Then I’m quietly sliding the fifty pound box into my room. In the silence of my room. Indian style. Just staring down at the box. It’s been twelve minutes, and my body and my eyes haven’t moved. It’s the first thing of yours that I’ve gotten. Maybe I would have rathered it to be like it was, where all I had was your old bible and pictures and home movies that haven’t left this house since you’ve been here. If that were the case, the box would be empty, not in my possession, and I would be snuggled under my comforter with both ceiling fans on, sleeping. But no, tonight my cat Sasha is circling around me and the box making me feel ridiculous. I take the lid off. Deep breath. I’ll go through it quickly and gently. It’ll be so fast; I won’t shuffle things around either. It’ll be just like it was when I got it, and I’ll slide the fifty pound box back in the living room and tell mom that I haven’t opened it yet when she asks in the morning. I glance through Maw-Maw’s religious books, and I feel the jolt in my chest at the sight of her signature on the covers. But truth be told, I just want to get to you, Dad. I’ve been missing you a lot lately, and I really could use a visit, even if it’s with a lot of tears and only through pictures and a poem Paw-Paw wrote. I still need you, you know.

I’m going through this box. This damn box. Everything is here that I expected, the picture, the poem, everything except for the memory that has been hiding from me. I’m examining your old report cards like a forensic analyst. A few red FAILS, some Ds, Fs, Cs, the occasional B. Your second grade teacher says “Pat is a beautiful boy. He just gets distracted.” One A in photography. I start laughing. I remember you telling me you took a picture of a dog while he was taking a shit. I told you that you were disgusting, and you laughed and said “Well, my teacher loved it, and I got an A!” It all ended with a giggle and a grin. I question my memories that are hiding, and how they like to randomly appear in my life. I question my questions and think of how they were answered by you.

2 A.M. lying in my bed, staring at the bumps on the ceiling. Blank and hallow. All I can hear is the squeak of my eyelashes against my glasses. Earlier, the girls wanted to go to a party at my ex-boyfriend’s house. Before we left they were nagging me “Are you actually going to go?” “What’s the big deal?” “You have to come this time” “No excuses Lauren.” I tried not to look reluctant and I went. I was in no mood for arguing or defending myself. Yesterday marked five years, and all I wanted to do was go home. Standing there next to those people, the majority that I don’t care about, their faces blurred, their voices mumbles in the back of my mind. I made a few comments about being ready to leave, and then I had to get out of there. Of course I had to hear “You leavin’ already?” “Why?” “Where you goin’ grandma?” I hate explaining myself, so I usually just don’t. I left feeling relieved each mile closer to home. Driving home I could hear them all saying that I never do anything, that I’m boring, that I need to let the whole ex-boyfriend deal go, that I always just stay home. I let it get to me for a while. But there never seems to be enough time to be the girl who goes to a party and only thinks about the party while at the party, or to be the girl who flirts relentlessly with a circle of monotonous faces. Got to the lonely red light by the church, only a few more miles. I could feel mom’s soft hands rubbing my arm. I got home, took off my jewelry, got into a big t-shirt, and crawled next to my mom on the couch as she showed me an interesting article she found in O Magazine. I didn’t have to mention my dad or the fact that it’s been five years. It just felt good to be home. 

Mom, you work a lot. You sit in traffic a lot. You work around the house a lot. You help others a lot. You help me a lot a lot. “Where did the weekend go?” you ask me on a Sunday night while you put away dinner and I make a pot of coffee. You ask this question often, and I usually give the same dull answers, “I don’t know” or “I know it flew by.” But you feel the loss of time so much more intensely than I do. We want to do so much, and our minds twirl as we walk around Jo-Ann’s fabric store, or Home-Depot, or just sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast. We’ll use this color for the walls. We’ll paint something new for the big wall in the living room that looks something like this, and you sketch it out. We get excited and our voices raise and then all of a sudden we have all of these ideas and projects and to-do-lists, but where is the time to do the things, all of these things, you want to do once you find them. 

I get comments all of the time that my purse is obnoxiously heavy. My response - “I need my stuff.” I have all of this stuff. Really I do. Even when I’m going for a jog down the street, no iPod, no rings on my fingers, I still have so much stuff. But it’s more than just stuff. I befriend unexpected people in my life, like the elderly woman in Hancock Fabrics whose son is a millionaire and uses butterfly appliqués to cover up the “frickin’ ink pen stain” on her new comforter. I go to family parties and get gifts that give memories. If I give my eyes the chance they deserve, to open wide enough, I can really see that there are all of these wonderful people in my life, and there are all of these accidental moments that keep giving me new memories and that also keep giving old ones back to me. I’m living through my days with both of my parents. They are both with me in different ways, but they are still with me. I’ve looked around enough to know that you’re the one[s] I want to go through time with.