Carrying A Memory

 

At 43, I carry the feeling of a small hand pressed against mine 17 years ago. I take this in the place of a secret, of a yearning, of an addiction, of a lie. Buried under the bowels of the heavy earth, the image will appear in my head, like a faithful ghost aged by the many years.         In this memory there is a sun that is still pouring its bright colors over the scenery. The streets are loud and active yet I am so absorbed in the feeling of a little hand grasping mine. I gaze down at the child to find a misalignment in the collar of his shirt and release those precious animate fingers to adjust it. Hurriedly, his hand jumps back into mine afraid of getting lost in the crowd of other hands on that busy day, on that busy streets. He is content again as he feels the tender stroke of his mother. I nurture and stroke the little hand as the wind quietly presses itself through. It is small, with wild fingers and skin of velvet. I hold it and the fingers so eagerly wish to grow beneath mine.         We walk a great distance, away from the noise of the honking cars and the heavy odors in restaurant corners, away from the crowds and the street vendors.         "Where are we going," the child asks repeatedly, puzzled by the nature of our unexpected walk.         "To a place with all the things you could ever want," I reply again and again in the same promisingly tone.         "Are we going… to… oh, I know the toy store,” he suggests using his wishful thinking.         "Be patient for a while," was my all I could say.          I hold his small hand as it grows heavier and heavier. His legs begin to tremble, but we walk and walk, hand in hand, until the day becomes dark, until the streets become unfamiliar.         I remember how I grab tighter so as to remember that touch for the years to come. I turn to face him, "Hey?" He responds quickly without the energy to look up, "Can we stop, can we take a break?" "Yes, but I think I dropped something important a few blocks back, wait for me here, okay?" I whisper encouragingly.         Without looking back I hold his hand a bit tighter, then let go. Walking swiftly, I count the steps that it takes before I am no longer a mother but a woman with a memory that will become 17 years old. I walk and walk, turning the corner leaving the child behind. Alone, with large watery eyes, the little boy watches as I disappear behind a building. At 43, I carry the feeling of a small hand pressed against mine 17 years ago. I take this in the place of a secret, of a yearning, of an addiction, of a lie. Buried under the bowels of the heavy earth, the image will appear in my head, like a faithful ghost aged by the many years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

Reviews

[Jonathan Bryant Dean]

This is a sad story of remembrance. I like what you have described, and the plot is atrong. There are some small editing issues. I noted a few run-on sentences, but I do not feel the need to point those out.

I will bring your attention to a few phrases that I thought were incomplete:

It be content again as it feels the tender stroke of its mother. Now we will walk a distance this hand and I. "Where," the child asks very puzzled by the journey. -- Should there be another word between "It" and "be"? Maybe it would read better as, "It will be." And there should be a question mark after "Where."

Inside of this memory there is child's hand, there is my hand, and then there is a boy and his mother. -- There should be another word in the underlined phrase. Maybe "a" or "the."

This is not a slam by any means, just what I hope you will see as a helping hand.

JBD

[Thea M. Joy]

I have read and re-read this story and somehow I think I must be missing something. My first thought was that it was about a woman who gave her child up for adoption, perhaps because she discovered she couldn't care for him anymore but when I got to the end it's as if she just abandoned him in the middle of a busy street. Maybe I am not understanding some key part of the story, I'm not sure. It is a sad story and horrifying if it is truly that the child was simply abandoned. I really don't know what to say other than it is completely depressing.

[..]

I can visual the whole thing very well written.....Kim

[Richard McLin]

This is the second piece of yours that I have read tonight, and I have to say that they are both great, but man the power of the emotion, it's frightningly real. I know I spelled the word wrong, but I don't care, I'm so overtaken by your work. Great job.

Richard

[Leah D]

This is a beautiful rendering of an archetypal situation -- the worst kind of abandonment. The point of view of the mother is the most difficult you could choose to convey, and you do it wonderfully. I think focusing on the hands, to begin with, then moving to the whole persons is a brilliant decision.

A couple tiny things I would alter. One is just punctuation:
'"Where?" the child will ask very puzzled by the journey.' A comma between 'ask' and 'very,' as the last begins the modifier of 'child.'

And a sentence just before that one has a bit of scrambled pronoun reference: 'Hurriedly, the hand will jump back into mine afraid of getting lost in the crowd of other hands on that busy day, on that busy street. It will be content again as it feels the tender stroke of its mother.' 'It" at the beginning (the subject) is the boy's hand. The mother isn't just the mother of the hand, but of the whole boy. It's her hand that has the 'tender stroke.' Just making 'mother' possessive would bring everything into alignment.

And one more sentence that seemed a little unwieldy. 'His wishful thinking will bring the mother to a throbbing within the corners of her sunken heart.' 'bring his mother to' seems too passive. And I think it's the heart that's throbbing. "His wishful thinking will bring a throbbing to the corners of his mother's sunken heart.' How about that?

I like the casting of the past into the future tense, too, by the way. That manipulation of tense is the perfect way to express the present and future impact of the memory.

[Kimberly S]

That is so depressing. I was holding my little boy when i started reading this.. and i just cnat believe how painful that would be. I liked the writing.. sorry if it took long to reply.. the writing was so sad.. i mean it was great how you worded everything and made it so nostalgic. It was almost like i was there, about to leave my own child. It really almost made me cry. I would love a happy story like that.. because your detail was really strong.

[V. K. Harris]

How very sad. It is but another great work of your writing art. Thank You.

[Gypsy]

So sad! Very touching as well. I was immediately drawn into your story. It left me wanting to know more!

[Kenji Light]

I like the concept here. I think that switching between third and first person is a little confusing at parts but I can't complain. Mai Lai, a poem of mine, switches from first to third. I needed it to be that way to get the full effect. That poor kid though, he was abandoned by the one person that you would think would be able to support him. She probably assumed that she would be able to give him a better life, but if that is the truth then how could she afford to buy him toys? I mean, he mentioned a toy store so he must have been to one at least once. It meant to me like she had money. Maybe it was a bigger issue. I dunno. I like that about this story, it makes me think. Good write.

[TL Boehm]

as a writer I am in awe of your ability to illicit such strong emotion
As a reader I am enthralled - thoroughly captured and held until I cannot breathe by the depth and gravity of this piece.
As a mom - this is visceral, horrific....
So much goes through my mind I am not sure on which point to stick to. You are an amazing writer with an incredible ability to create a strong story - to tap emotions that run to our core values - and I can see this as the beginning of a longer piece.
It is not a nice story - but there is such power in it.

[Adamdust]

Abandonment! unexplained abandonment. I was expecting something else, thank you for not writing cliche drivel, the kind where i'd expect the narrator to be some victim of a horrible unfair life-changing accident. despite that s**t happening all the time, i'm just glad this writing took a different direction. I feel the purpose of this writing is to anchor an effect on the reader, not to answer little questions, but to make us feel particular about a thing. It accomplishes this, the child is set up as that innocent subject that needs to be lead, cared for and taken "by hand" and then left adrift. and the memory of the deed, the hand the act, also set a little adrift like memories often are.

It begins almost too translucent. (i don't mean "i can sort of see through it.") I mean, it feels like it's going to be a completely internalized narrative, some poetic subjective unfully formed repression. It feels like it is going to cry all over itself. But it doesn't really. it turns into a concretized event, concrete in two senses: literal in the physical world, and hardened heart-like as if to say "I didn't just do that." Which in my opinion is a big breath of literary air. it isn't neurotic like most self-obsessed regret writings we read now and then. So as a writer,i feel like you successfully disembodied yourself from the writing and let it live on its own terms. bravo. I'm going to turn my attention now to some notes i'm going to leave you. be sure to check them out and let me know what you think.