Sharks and Dolphins: An Unexpected Blow

A child's observation of grief. Two perspectives on the same event: One in the moment from the perspective of a child, the other as a reflection on a memory in the past.

Age 9:

The smell of the pillow makes my nose itchy. Hotels always smell scratchy sometimes. I don’t mind this hotel so much, though, because this one gave me a stuffed animal when my parents picked up the magic cards. Mine was a dolphin. Her name is flower because flowers are pretty and so is she.  My brother chose a shark because he thought its teeth looked scary. I told him he was dumb. Didn’t he know that dolphins killed sharks? That’s what the TV said, so it’s true. I was trying to show him how dolphins hit sharks with their sharp noses when I noticed the room had gotten really quiet and sickly like the hospital where my grandma was living. I stopped my dolphin mid attack and snuck to peek through the door to the room where my parents and grandparents had been watching something boring on TV. My mom looked frozen, and she was holding the ugly hotel telephone to her chest like it was a baby at church. But she looked sad, and babies don’t make mommies sad.

My grandpa’s face looks a lot like the crumpled piece of paper on the ground. His eyes look tiny like raisins. I hate raison. Slowly, very slowly, he moves his hand toward his heart. I looked around, but I didn’t see an American flag anywhere. Grown-ups are very confusing sometimes.

My grandma looks like a water balloon that I accidentally filled too full. She looks swollen and dangerous. I feel afraid of her. I don’t want her to see me. I tuck myself behind the door so that I am invisible. Where is my dad?

I see him facing the corner. Did he put himself in timeout? He feels very big in the little, tight room. He turns from the corner, and he looks very strange. His face is hard and fake, like the mask my brother wore on Halloween. His eyes are different, too. I am not afraid that he will see me, because his eyes are only looking at my mom. His eyes aren’t scary, though. They look sad and scared.

My brother runs up behind my and pulls at my shirt. He wants to see, too. I push him away with my hand still holding a dolphin. He falls to the ground. Take that, shark boy. I start to feel very happy that I have beaten him, but then I am distracted because my dad is moving toward my mom. He looks strong and solid, like a rock or a lion. Without even moving the mattress, he sits down next to my mom on the bed. She is still frozen with the telephone held tightly. My dad and mom stare at each other, and my dad takes the telephone away from my mom. The gentle click of the phone back in its cradle does something weird, and suddenly the quiet room gets very, very loud. My mom hides in my dad’s arms. I can’t see her mouth, but I know she’s crying. My grandma is screaming. It’s not a happy scream like on Halloween, though. It’s a scary loud sound that moves up and down. I don’t like it. My grandpa has his bald head in his hands. I have never seen him cry. He is moaning, a low sound that I can feel in my shoes.

I can’t stand this. I don’t know what’s happening to my family. I don’t understand. No one has noticed me. I run as fast as I can from behind the door back into the other room where my brother and I had been playing. I close the door super quick and stand in front of it. I don’t want anyone to come through that door. I don’t want my family to find me. Not now.

I see my brother sitting on the ground where he had fallen. He is sniffling, and he’s hugging his shark. I sit down next to him and put my little arms around his blonde head.

“Sharks aren’t stupid,” I tell him. “Sharks are very brave.” 

* * *

Adulthood:

It’s amazing how much hotels and hospitals have in common. The white, sterile walls, manicured politeness from the attendants, hushed stillness, and ludicrous room fees. In both, you are only a number- a patient or a room. In both, loved ones may visit you or you may be left painfully lonely in a coffin built of four unsmiling walls.

            This particular hotel added to the deathly ambience by giving all kids a stuffed animal- can you say St. Jude or what? Just like any kid, though, I was bought off by my stuffed animal into believing that this was the best hotel ever. I chose a stuffed dolphin as my prize. I normally would have chosen a cat, but my brother had picked his prize before me: a shark. And I knew that dolphins could kill sharks. I was a precocious young snot, so I decided I would be strategic in this sort of implicit game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

            All the way up to our room, I egged my brother on. He was the calm, easy-going type, so naturally I had made it my life’s mission to try to get a rise out of him at any given opportunity. He rarely stooped to my prodding, so when he did I felt like the Allies at the razing of the Berlin Wall. Today was one of those rare days when I could see the crack in his tranquil demeanor. Like a cat, I pounced into action, clawing and scratching that tiny fracture into a full-blown explosion. An outburst from by brother was like a firework- explosive, sudden, dazzlingly colorful, and over in a moment.

            We both got in trouble. That was always the catch with these schemes, but it was always worth it. He and I were instructed to stay in the other room on opposite beds for five minutes and then to come get one of the adults to mediate our peace agreement.

            We both sat in our solitary confinement. The adults were watching tennis in the other room, so I deemed it safe to make just a little noise. Sure, it was against the terms of our surrender, but I could not be broken so easily. It started as a tongue sticking out at a glorious 180-degree angle, then a slobbery raspberry, then the classic “neiner, neiner.” My brother gave no response, resolute blue eyes fixed straight ahead. Naturally, I got a bit louder. “Dolphins are better than sharks!” Still no reply. I heard the phone ringing loudly in the adult room and felt invincible. I started jumping up and down on the bed. “Dolphins are the best animal everrrr!” Still nothing. Quite fed up with his attitude, I had just jumped off my bed to get up in his face and demand a response when I froze. Something inexplicably different wafted from the other room- something that would solidify my association of hotels and hospitals forever.

            That day that I lost both my uncle and my grandma. My uncle had died suddenly from a brain aneurism. Very rare, like a lightening strike with no thunder to even warn us of its approach. My grandma I lost to grief. She came undone, like a piece of soggy newspaper in the water of her tears. “A parent should never outlive their child” became the guilty mantra of her broken spirit, and she fumbled to live in accordance with that belief. That is, she strove to not live at all in some twisted understanding of parental loyalty to her son. I learned that death isn’t final. It’s spiny fingers pry into the lives of the living, tearing apart a family like a dolphin tears apart a shark.

Author's Note

A fiction.

Reviews

[Brad Rancourt]

This gave me a very strange feeling inside. I know it's an emotion I felt when I was younger but I couldn't tell you or describe that emotion now. Very good, a few typos and mistakes, nothing serious! Enjoyed this a lot. Keep writing.
Brad R