To Johnnie

You are the star of my earliest memories, my best memories.

You are my first love, my best love, my biggest heartbreak.

I cannot remember a time when I did not love you. Even those daysmonthsyears when i hated you, when I prayed to come home and find you dead, still I loved you.

Still, I love you.

I have loved you since the day I was born just as surely as you loved me the moment they placed me, squalling, into your arms.

I have a hazy memory from when we lived beside the munchers with the back deck that had no railings, like a dock in the sea of green.

I am maybe three years old and pull a group of dandelions from the ground by their roots and hide them behind my back, heart bubbling over at this gift I have picked for you. I toddle through the tall grass and over the knots of tree roots to where you wait with your legs hanging off the side of the deck and when I present the flowers to you they are nothing but stems. The seeds have been carried away during my journey and my tiny heart clenches with sadness and embarrassment, tears welling - I have brought you nothing but worthless green sticks.

You laugh; you take them anyway. You tell me that they’re beautiful and stand to swing me up into your arms and I wrap mine around your neck.

Another memory: 

I am in kindergarten and we live next door to the Toasty’s with their escape-artist Rottweilers. I am hiding beneath a scaffolding in the living room, pink insulation falling itchy onto my skin.

I have the sense of a room full with voices, pitched loud and clashing.

You hit mom and the impact of her back hitting the basement door slams it open and she falls down the onetwothree steps to the cement floor. Randie is across the hall from me tucked under a desk.

Then we are climbing into Mary Sprayberry’s van and you are standing at the foot of the driveway watching us pile in. The front door to our house stands open behind you and the moon is full above your head. Your arms are held out at your sides, pleading.

You’re crying.

you say,

“doesn’t anyone want to stay with me?”

And I think,

Yes

Me

I do.

But I don’t say a thing.

I’m not sure anymore if the guilt I feel for that is part of the memory or the shame of hindsight telling me you didn’t deserve my loyalty.

Reviews

[Bala Gorthi]

I like the way you brought out a story in your write. An interesting presentation !
No one can forget those childhood incidences. We carry the love, hatred and pain through out our lives.
We all can relate to such stories.. The small details you are giving in the story make it live.
Thanks for sharing this write. Keep writing.....