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2010
Literary Art
Visual Art
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I Was 18 and Alive
Kailynn Von Kronemann
My kid sister hates, detests, loathes the sound of balloons popping. You know, I’ve never really looked into the depths of psychological analysis. Beyond the surface-level tourist attractions of the Elektra Complex and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, anyway. But I think I could take a go at where this stems from. It comes from a birthday party in our Grandfather’s backyard.
Nana and Papa were from the old country, the bottom boot, Calabria, Italy. That place where everything is in direct dissonance with here. Papa never understood the need for wrapping paper. He took it upon himself every year to present gifts to his grandchildren with an alternative casing. My seventh birthday present, a cherry red bouncy ball and collection of shined jacks, was given to me in hollowed chicken eggs. But his greatest wrapping was unveiled at Tilla’s ninth birthday. Papa paraded us all out to the little vineyard for his presentation. The backyard-sized grapevines were decorated with yellow balloons tied to purple ribbon tangled in the bunches. It was as if each vine had its own sun, because Papa their creator had deemed it. Why share a sun, one happiness, one life, when there can be so much more?
With broken English and gestures of a man trying to paint the sky a deeper blue, he proceeded to take shy Tilla to the center of the vine. One by one he stabbed the once-happy-to-simply-be-inflated elastic balloons, letting a different coin drop to Tilla’s feet. As the generations of extended family laughed, Tilla collected each coin and skipped along to meet Papa at the next balloon. Her eyes danced, with what I can only describe as rejoicing. Papa grinned, very pleased at this year’s reaction. And he began to laugh. His laugh could swallow sound—that’s how triumphant it was. No matter what was on your mind, Papa’s laugh would alleviate it, so your only functioning process was conforming to its unadulterated happiness.
I didn’t know it right then, but this would be Papa’s last gift wrapping. As he pierced the final balloon, he collapsed on the dark soil before the yellow stream of elastic could feel gravity’s harsh pull.
They say it was a brain aneurism. But I wonder if it was the laugh. Maybe you’re only allowed a certain quota of happiness, and once you run out, it’s over. Sure explains why the good have that uncanny habit of dying young. Sure some people dig their nails in real tight to this existence. But really, what’s the point? Might as well be content to be nothing. But I don’t know. Maybe there’s more than that.
Just like there’s more than those aging albums of faded 3 by 5 glossed pictures and overplayed home videos to remind me the way he used to raise his eyebrows before he would enunciate words that began with w’s. I need more than some rewindable short short’s versions of him to prove it was all real. That it is all still something, that he is still someone. I suppose he’s not, he’s an effect, a before, no longer an after. A memory. But hey, maybe that’s really something. That’s it. You are now everything that you once were. Your traces are you, and it just happens to make all the difference. Those bread crumbs of existence are just as pertinent as Christmas dinners you attended. Maybe more so. While those dinners can be recollected, your boundless aftershocks of choices and actions reverberate far beyond old stories. Perhaps legacy is greater than the present. May as well live it every second now. I guess it goes back to what Papa told me on my egg-filled seventh birthday.
Never one for shallow actions, Papa had thought about how to wrap the jacks for quite a few weeks. He stumbled around with the idea of peeling back the petals of fresh rosebuds to slip the tiny metal pieces in with the pollen, but he decided on the eggs.
Eggs, because believe it or not he enlightened me to know that “I was to be his constant chick.” Not exactly what you want to hear as a seven year old boy who was hoping to unwrap a black power ranger action figure after cake and ice cream. At the sight of my confusion, he began to unfold his source of inspiration. He had had a flock of chicks as a kid, apparently his closest companions at age seven. He would take them on daily walks. But turns out being the shepherd of chicks is a lot tougher than one would expect. Perhaps Jesus had the right idea with opting for a human herd. You see, the chicks were never settled with simply following one another in a single filed line. Each one insisted on finding his or her own path home. Luckily, they were never quiet about their latest trailblazing discoveries and sang their tweets with each new sight. Before the sun set each day, Papa was able to usher the defiant individuals back to their old home on top of the hill. Papa took me on his knee for this last part of the story. Leaning in close enough for me to feel the warm air from his round nostrils on the tip of my nose, he told me “You understand, you are my chick. Don’t go in the line. Don’t follow. Go ahead, Christian, look around and remember to make some noise for it.” The trace of an echo from a life of singing, laughing, dancing, is where he is. Where it all is.
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