THE ORANGE DAISY
(for my uncle, 2.6.1973 -- 4.5.-2008)
To write about the pain of a family member's death is to try to catch a sparrow mid-flight. One might feel the whisper of a feather against a fingertip, or find a single word, or phrase, but it is never enough. The bird is never caught. The words are never snared. As the years pass, this becomes a moot point: the pain lessens like all pain lessens, and it is better to look forward than back. But, like all things, it is never forgotten in its entirety, and it is never remembered in the same way.
Cormac McCarthy wrote that “You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.” I remember a funeral. I remember my uncle's waxen forehead jutting like a hilltop from the silver smoothness of a casket. I remember my aunt's shaking hands resting on her pregnant belly. I do not remember my uncle's jovial smile, or the lines of his face, or the jokes he used to tell as well as I used to. Looking at photographs is like looking at a stranger, somehow familiar but difficult to place in life's undulating trajectory. I tried to write about my uncle –the person, rather than the idea-- many times, but found no words to describe him. I chased after the proverbial bird until my muscles burned, but never caught it. I was left exhausted, crumpled pages in my wake.
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I am in a tattoo parlor, and it smells like antimicrobial soap. I have been here for an hour now, and I am stretching; it is nearly as tiring to remain still as it is to run a mile. My shoulder burns, and I trudge to the mirror to look at it, and smile. There, adorning my skin, is the perfect black outline of a daisy. My boyfriend peeks over my shoulder and locks eyes with me in the mirror. “It looks good.” He smiles.
“Do you think Benny would have liked it?” I ask as I twist in the mirror, looking at my inflamedjoint from every conceivable angle.
My boyfriend squeezes my other shoulder, “Of course he would have.”
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My uncle, Benny Divita, died when he was 35 years old. The cause of death was never determined, even after an extensive autopsy. His wife was pregnant with their first child. At the funeral, I watched her. She looked straight ahead through the entire presentation, and did not cry so much as dab the invading tears as soon as they surfaced for air. Her palms never left her rounded stomach, as if protecting the child from the pain he would soon know, and would later come to understand.
Rivers drained out of my eyes. The daisies surrounding Benny's coffin blurred into daubs of vibrant color, like a Pollock painting.
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My tattoo artist returns from a smoke break and smiled. “Ready for part two?” he asked, settling back into his chair.
I nod, still peering at myself in the mirror. I am ready. We begin again, filling the daisy's petals with my uncle's favorite color, the color of pumpkins, and autumn, and warm things.
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There was a wall of snapshots just inside the doors of the funeral service. In one image, my uncle is young, and blond, and roguish. In another, he is holding a little girl in a pool. The little girl has an arm wrapped around his neck, and a cheek pressed against his. Their smiles seem to go on forever. I stared into those little girl's eyes for a long time before I realized she was me.
At the very bottom of the wall is a photograph of myself and my uncle, on a merry-go-round some years after the first picture was taken. We are posed as before, my smaller form leaning on his much larger form. There are no pictures of us when I am older, and colder, and unable to tell him that I needed to lean on him still.
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My uncle's son is two months old before I meet him. He is round and beautiful. I am shy around my aunt, and am unable to say this aloud, so I give the baby my finger and let him squeeze. When no one is looking, I lean down and whisper, “You look like your daddy. I can't wait to tell you about him.”
The infant's lips crinkle, and he blows a spit bubble.
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Before I walked into my tattoo appointment, I called my mother and asked her what she thought of my idea. She asked me if the placement were wise. She is, after all, a mother.
“I think so,” I responded, “It feels best.”
“What about your wedding day, whenever that is, when you have to wear some strapless number and get your photo taken?”
I smiled into the mouthpiece, “Benny would have wanted to be at my wedding.”
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Somewhere, a sparrow takes wing.
