Melon Collie

Dear Frijole,

Most of the time I am trying not to think too far ahead of where you are right now.  I just have to do it that way for my own sanity.  But once in awhile my mind wanders and I wonder what you will be like.  What will your personality be?  Will you be impatient and stubborn and moody and melancholy like me?  I think things will be easier for you if not, but maybe I will understand you better if so.When I let myself imagine far enough into the future to picture you as a full-on kid, I find myself thinking often about one of my earliest memories. 

My mom and I lived in a white trailer with light blue trim on Willis Ave. in Bridgeport, WV.  We were right behind the car wash and T&L Hot Dog.  It wasn't a particularly scenic area, but to my delight we were next to a creek and an apple tree where I often played.  I must have been four going on five years old during the time of this memory, because we didn't live there that long.

One morning, I woke up before my mom and I climbed up onto our couch in the living room to look out the window.  It was grey and raining, and the raindrops pounded and streamed down the window, blurring my view.  I was still in the time period of my life where I adored my mother--she was the most beautiful, wonderful, intelligent woman in the world.  I worshipped her.  She worked midnight shifts at the post office in Clarksburg and slept during the day, so I spent a lot of time with other family members and babysitters.  I craved her attention and soaked up any bit of it I could get--a laugh or a smile or a back rub or a hug nestled into her warm, perfumed chest.  My god, I ate it up.

Because I didn't get to see her very much, I was terrified that she would forget that she had a little girl.  She was only 22 at that time, you see, and still very much wanted to go out with friends and boyfriends when she had free time.  When I was around her, I tried to be the best girl I could be.  I tried not to whine or cry or complain.  I tried to listen and do what I was told.  I tried to be very, very polite.  I constantly drew her pictures so she could see just how much I loved her. 

In my free time, I tried to ease my anxiety about my mom forgetting about me.  At my babysitter Carolyn's and at my papaw and grandmother's houses, I would "bop" on the couch endlessly and chant to myself repetitively:

My mommy loves me
She's coming to get me
My mommy loves me
She won't forget me

It always felt like I was waiting for her to come.

Anyway, on that particular rainy morning in the trailer, I gazed out the window and worried about my mom dying.  My calico cat Cookie had recently gotten hit and killed by a car, and this brush with mortality and new, uncomfortable awareness of death had given me a whole host of new things to agonize over. 

What if my mom died and left me alone?  That possibility was too terrible to fathom, so I assured myself that I would just have to die and be buried with her because I could never, ever be alone.  For a moment I can distinctly remember being comforted by this solution until a new and terrible question dawned on me.  What if my mom and I didn't die at the same time so that we could be buried together?  The choices I felt I was left with seemed awful:  I could either be left alone without her or be buried alive with her.  I pictured the two of us in a hole in the ground, me clinging to my mother, while dirt was thrown on us to cover us up as it had been thrown on my cat when she was buried.  How terrifying!  But the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced this was the only option to keep from being left behind.  I started to cry with resignation and fear.

My mom shuffled sleepily into the living room in her silky, rose-colored bathrobe, took one look at me sobbing on the back of the couch, and said, "Why are you crying?"

I raised my face--by now both my eyes and nose were streaming--and blurted out, "I don't want to be buried alive with you!"

For the life of me I cannot recall her response, and I cannot fathom what my own response would be to such an axious, gloomy child.

I hope that you are carefree, Frijole.  I hope that you are always secure in my love for you, and I hope your mind is never darkened with such melancholy.  For now, I can only drink my milk and take my vitamins and promise myself that you will only know love and safety so that your imagination is free to dance in sunnier ways.

Love,

Mama