Buried
We traveled by car. My grandparents left upstate New York and drove the eleven hours to my home in Virginia, where I waited, impatient and seven years old, for them to pick me up and continue the drive to Florida, to Disney World.
I spent the entire journey reading, so immersed in words already that I often didn’t hear my grandmother, grandfather or aunt try to break through with their comments on scenery or questions about hunger or bathroom breaks.
In northern Florida, at least, that’s where I think we were, we stopped to visit some family and attend a reunion of sorts. My seven year old self, anyway, believes this is what it was. Cousins, second cousins, my mother’s aunts – it all dissolved in a haze, much as it does even now at these functions. A confusion of blood, like a flock of birds or a herd of cows.
But there was another young girl there, maybe related to me in some way. She pointed out a bushy, palm-like plant, whose name I still haven’t learned, and warned me away from them, telling me, in her small, six-year-old way, that they would cut me, slice into my flesh and leave welts like paper cuts, stinging and colorless. And she told me her mother was dead.
I had no context yet for this thing, “dead.” We played with her delicate rag doll, sitting by the pebbles that surrounded the landscaping plants in this jungle, this foreign clime. We dug a hole and sang and said childish prayers, before we lay the doll in the sandy earth and covered her with rocks to weigh her down, keep her here for a time, anyway.
This reenactment haunted me. I was already a sensitive child, attracting tragedy like other children collect grass stains and mud. Perhaps I read too much. But I’ve imagined this event many times over the years, pulling it apart for meaning and sense, pictured other children performing the ritual of death with dolls, cars, even the hollow bodies of found insects. I wish I could remember what it meant to me at the time.
Now, of course, having come so close to that place just a year ago, I imagine my own children, their miniature hands placing beloved toys in the dirt and burying them, submerging them in the earth. Singing songs of mourning with no words, praying over a dead mother.
And I fill with something like hope.
Thank you for this. It’s a poignant picture of the blurriness of childhood and how we try to make of sense of the world ceaselessly.
The editor in my finds myself confused by this piece. For a couple of reasons. And I say this kindly, so please read it that way.
You say you had no context for death at 7, but clearly you did as you buried the other child’s doll OR you did not have a context, as you say, but left the situation having gained one. Either way, I think for your piece to be as truly evocative as you wish…and also to exist as a fully-defined fragment of your self, you need to expand on whatever direction this encounter took you re: death. Did you fail to comprehend the death of a parent and all of that entailed?
To me, that passage raises all kinds of questions that I cannot answer. Not questions that will lead me to a deeper understanding of myself or life after I puzzle them out for myself, but questions like “Wait, what direction is this going?” without really providing an answer.
Also, how did you pass close to this place a year ago? Physically, like you were near the site of this encounter? Or figuratively, like you almost died yourself. As a reader, I am not sure what you mean..and that is not the kind of ambiguity you want in your writing.
So, there you go. Lit Crit. More than you never asked for.
But was Disney fun???
Other J, you might consider a) asking someone if they want your critique or b) sending it privately. I mean that kindy. I just know how I’d feel if someone left a lengthy and unsolicited post such as yours on my blog: slightly embarrassed and defensive. Just a thought for future reference. Peace.
Wow. That was a very powerful piece of prose. Gets me thinking about some of my own murky childhood memories that were too big for my britches back then.
wow.. beautifully written, and haunting.
My father died when I was 17, my sister was 2 and 1/2. I remember bathing her one day; she was playing with a little toy boat. She was talking to her imaginary friend “Namie” and our father. The woman who helped out had told her daddy had gone away; we lived on the water and had a boat and I guess she thought that was the natural way for him to have ‘gone away’. Too young to comprehend what was going on around her- and unfortunately for all of us, my mother was unable or unwilling to talk about it in any way that could help any of us.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jennifer L. Monroe, CaveatCalcei and marie antoinette, Muliercula. Muliercula said: RT @Gabfran: "A confusion of blood, like a flock of birds…" @BarelyKnit on Rituals of death, remembered from childhood. http://tinyurl.com/yeckxw2 [...]
Wow.
You never fail to amaze me, BKT.
Pampas grass. It’s pampass grass.
Oh, I’m sorry. I do know the writer. We had talked about doing this before. It’s nothing I wouldn’t appreciate. All a part of being a better writer, listening to other writers…and editors. And I was a good one, once. It’s hard to put yourself out there, I know. But if you want to be better, having many people pat you on the back will not get you there.
As a writer, the very best thing anyone ever did for me was take my work and shred it in front of my face. Because what I’d done was okay, but it wasn’t great. And I can do great. So can Jennifer. If she couldn’t, there wouldn’t be a point, would there?
And as comments are approved on this blog, I simply assumed it would remain private if privacy was so desired.
But good looking out for your friend. I’m no naysayer, nor am I merely a yaysayer. I can always be counted on to say exactly what I think.