A little late with Day 10’s prompt but I’m still here.
What am I grateful for?
I am grateful that:
Though life has been really challenging taking care of my father, I’ve been blessed with his presence for 7 months so far, including Christmas and New Year;
During this time, my siblings and I, as adults, have been able to have “adult” conversations about shared childhood occurences and memories;
My siblings and I get along well and work as a unit to get things done;
After struggling to juggle full-time work and full-time caregiving, I finally listened to others who encouraged me to step away from work; and
Most importantly, I have been given time to tell and show my father, every day how much he means to me.
As a writer, I think that people assume that I have experienced EVERYTHING I write in my fiction.
Naturally, that is not true.
But I do take lots of personal experiences and lessons and incorporate them into my writing by keeping to the “feeling” and not necessarily all of the “details”.
Friends, times are hard right now so nothing is making me laugh these days.
For today’s prompt, I will cheat and a funnier piece I once posted.
***
Whose laughing now?
The woman was plump, had a face full of wrinkles and looked beyond dowdy in her washed out yoga pants and oversized T-shirt. She stood shaking her head in frustration as her children raced up and down the grocery aisle. It was obvious that she wanted to crucify them but she seemed too tired to deal with them as they screamed and darted around people’s grocery carts.
Something about her felt familiar and I wondered from where I knew her. As I continued to scan the shelf for what I needed for the weekend, I eliminated the possibilities. She wasn’t from my university days, past jobs or from elementary school where everyone knew each other. High school was the only feasible place left and I immediately knew who she was – Eva the bully.
Eva was an older girl who had bullied me when I first started high school. She was in the graduating class and had taken a “liking” to me, taunting me in the meanest ways possible on the bus and whenever our paths would cross in the school hallways. I was her perfect target – young fresh meat, four years younger and one out of the handful of Black kids in the entire school. Her insults always focused my “blackness” – how ugly and Medusa-like my braids were, how my skin was brown like a monkey and anything else that came to her nasty little mind. Eva was a class act with her promises to beat me up if I opened my mouth and told on her. Yes, she was a first class mean girl who had a good laugh at my expense.
But even at that age, I knew better than to give her what she wanted – the satisfaction of scaring me, even if I was on the inside. I never showed fear but when pretending not to care only aggravated her more, she doubled up on her efforts and I had no choice to get my family involved. I couldn’t live on pins and needles until she graduated. She was already as dumb as a doorknob – what if she failed and had to repeat her grade…what would happen then?
I must have been deep in thought and staring at her while I took that 30+ year trip down memory lane because I found her staring curiously right back at me.
“Do we know each other?” Eva had the nerve to smile and it irked the shit out of me.
I was about to shake my head with a “no” and simply go about my business but when one of her kids crashed into me and kept running, it ignited a fire in the pit of my stomach. I found myself approaching her.
“I’m sure that you won’t remember me but I definitely remember you. You’re Eva, right?” I smiled.
“Yeah, I am. How do we know each other?”
I couldn’t help but smile even wider.
“You were the racist bitch that bullied me in my first year of high school. It’s hard to forget a face as ugly as yours.”
Eva’s face quickly changed from a smile to shock. From her wide eyes, she was confused at how the words coming out of my mouth were not corresponding with the smile on my face. She opened her mouth but couldn’t form a full sentence. But then again, she was always on the stupid side…
“What?”
“I said that you were the racist bitch that bullied me in my first year of high school,” I repeated a little louder, attracting the attention of a young couple standing nearby.
She tried to recognize my face from all those years ago, probably flashing back to what and who she had been back then and maybe to what and who she still was.
“You were nothing less than a monster but from the looks of it, you’re living a nightmare of your own. And you definitely deserve it. You reap what you sow.”
I pointed to her kids spitting out f* bombs at each other like they were candy, fighting over something from the shelf down the aisle. I didn’t give a flying fig that the young couple watching were fully fascinated by my words and were looking at Eva in total disgust.
I gave Eva my back and returned to where I had left my cart a few steps away, feeling her eyes on me the entire time. From the corner of my eye, I could see her standing motionless, unsure of what to do and looking extremely embarrassed. I finished taking down what I needed and glanced back at her.
“Have yourself a wonderful day Eva,” I told her and walked away to the cash.
No, it’s not true that I walked away.
I strutted my way down the grocery aisle, my stride overflowing with satisfaction.
You know what they say: “He who laughs last, laughs best…”
I have never been able to answer this type of question.
If the question was “Who is someone that you ADMIRE?” I would be able to give a bunch of answers because I admire a number of different people – artists, writers, creatives et al.
But that isn’t the question, is it?
I would love to be “deep” and say something like Gandhi, Mother Theresa and the like but I’m not going to lie.
“Inspire” is a big word. I’ll have to think about it.
Just a few days ago, I wished I knew how to tell someone “Fuck you!” and I will tell you why because I’m still quite pissed.
I will share with you that for the past 7 months, I have been providing palliative care to my father while working my full time job. I barely sleep and on most days there is no time to take a shower.
Needless to say, I feel like crap and I am running on fumes but I am a great actress at pretending to have energy – I have no intention of making my father feel guilty about all the time I spend with him.
I also know that I look like crap but this has not deterred me from helping my father videochat with friends and relatives for them to say hello and more importantly, goodbye over the past few days.
So where does my desire to learn how to tell someone “Fuck you!” come into this?
A cousin of mine called, I switched it over to a videochat for him to see and speak with my father. When he asked me a question, I took the phone but before I could answer, this is what he laughs and says to me verbatim:
“Wow Marquessa! Look at you! You look soooo tired! You need a few days at the spa or at least a beautician!”
I was speechless.
First, I was speechless that he would speak to my tiredness in front of my father, not even thinking twice about it. And from the guilty look on my father’s face, it hurt my heart.
Second, I was speechless that he would make a comment about my appearance when I already know that I look like crap and don’t need to be reminded, again…in front of my father.
Right now, my only priority is keeping my father as comfortable as possible, not beautifying myself.
And tell me, with all the covid curfews and lockdowns we are under again, where would I be going all dolled up anyways?
Yeah, exactly.
Third, this fool was laughing as he said this to me.
So what did I do?
Instead of telling him to go fuck himself (which I should have done according to a number of friends) I broke down.
Crying. Hyperventilating. The whole nine yards.
And though he was horrified by my reaction, my cousin will likely not think twice about saying something shitty and insensitive again (I could tell you a few other boundary pushing things he has said to me in the past).
So in the very near future, I will be learning how to let the words “fuck you” roll right off my tongue to certain people when need be.
And if by chance my cousin stumbles across this post, guess what two words I have waiting for you if we ever speak again?
You can call me Bear. You see, the little girl Marquessa (well, big girl now) to whom I belong never really gave me a name for fear that her brothers would find a way to make fun of me.
Without a doubt, I was Marquessa’s favorite toy. I still have a special place in her heart even 50 years later.
Unlike her other stuffed animals that remain abandoned on a couch in her parent’s basement, I moved out with Marquessa and took up residence in the middle of the futon in her home office. I have never endured the confines of a storage box or the far corner of a crowded closet. She would not have felt right doing that to me.
Instead, I have always had the privilege of having my own special spot. For a bear, I think that I have aged quite well. A little dusty and missing an eye isn’t too bad for all those years.
And as a companion to me, Pillow has always been at my side. Pillow was handmade by Marquessa’s mother and as a baby it was that same pillow on which she rested my head. Now I use Pillow to rest my head as well.
In a perfect world, it would have been fitting for Marquessa to one day pass me and Pillow onto her own children but since that will never happen, I will continue to savor the memories I have with her.
Marquessa 