Shine A Light On Me

When Jon and I moved back to Texas, we stayed with my mom for a year. At first it was odd to be in a house with her and my dad gone. I was sometimes hesitant to bring him up because I didn’t know how my mom would take it. One day I overheard her talking on the phone to a friend, “It’s still odd, sometimes I think I just missed him, like he went up to bed.” 

Eventually the feeling relaxed and we had the ability to talk about him without it being painful. I was convinced it would never happen, but it did. Those first three years after my dad passed, a lot changed. We all changed and it took time for the pain to grow fainter. The smiles, laughter and good memories outrun it by miles now. Even after several years, I was surprised that there were even stories yet to be heard.

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When I was about 9 or 10 I got invited to a birthday party of someone that my mom knew. I basically didn’t know this kid. They lived in an area close by, yet still unfamiliar to us. My dad was given the task to drive me to this birthday party. I was surprisingly excited to go, given the fact that I truly did not know anyone except for this girl I had met once. Little did we know that we were on a Stephen King mission to a house on a street, that was broken into other dimensions for no other reason than life’s casual cruelties.

We had no idea that the street, Bougainvillea, was broken apart across the block of the neighborhood. You had to literally drive out of it and loop around across into another area to find it. It made no sense. Worse, this was before Map Quest, Google maps or anything else to help you back then. My dad did his best in the tan Astro van, driving endlessly in a small section of Bougainvillea, tired and confused. We must have gone up and down the same street multiple times for almost 15 minutes, during which I became more and more wilted. I still remember thinking that I was phenomenally late and worse, that we’d never find it.

As we sat in silence about to make another loop, on the same path we’d already been on, staring out the window I grimly muttered, “it’s not like it’s going to change.” It wasn’t until years after he died I found out that apparently, my dad had found this moment hilarious. My mom happened to mention it to me. I was surprised and embarrassed because I didn’t even remember saying it and could feel my face turn red at how brutally honest I had been. I was also baffled that my dad had thought it was funny but showed no sign while we were together in the van that afternoon.

Eventually, with my help, he drove around and found the other fractured piece of Bougainvillea. I ran inside to the party that was already in full swing. It was not the best time, I didn’t know anyone, some boy was mean to me, someone fell off the trampoline hitting their head and cried a lot. The best thing about that party is my memory of my dad and me going in circles in the Astro van, lost on Bougainvillea. Instead of being annoyed or insulted by my sassy remark, he was thoroughly humored. He told my mom with a laugh, “she was right!”

One afternoon we were sharing some funny stories about him and my mom remembered the party story and told it to Jon because he had not yet heard it. My mom couldn’t remember the name of the street. With magical lightning I resurrected the word, Bougainvillea. A name I had not said or thought of since I was a kid. We laughed about it and I talked about how many circles we drove in that day.

Later that night, I put on an Japanese movie by Ozu. I was into old black and white Japanese films and had ordered a box set of this director that I liked. The DVD set had a few movies I had not yet seen. We watched one together and right towards the end, a character in the movie delivers a monologue about a bougainvillea sprouting red flowers in the middle of an old, abandoned house. He even explained that it was a tropical plant because it’s not something well known to most people. I still remember how all three of us looked at each other in quiet shock at the coincidence. Someone muttered, “we were just talking about Bougainvillea earlier…”

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Along with memories and stories, there’s a certain vision of our house that stays with me. As I got older, had jobs, went out with friends, moved into dorms and apartments, I still saw the same thing when I would drive back home at night. The comfort of a familiar road. No matter where I went or what I did, I always drove back to the same street, the same two trees and the glowing little kitchen window. 

In the thousands of times I’d seen my tiny house and glowing window, I’d never once considered when it would come to an end. Nor did I truly realize how lucky I was to have had it and for as long as I did. It’s still there but the light is not on for me anymore. The familiar sights and faces are no longer inside. Which is strange.

As a time traveler I can see my home now, though it has become fainter. It’s become trapped in a bubble of time that seemed both reliable and eternal. Now, I see it was a transient part of what has become an unfolding and unpredictably long life. No one tells you that, or that certain mundane images will remain framed in your mind forever. Images forever inside you, out of love you couldn’t comprehend or truly appreciate while you were actually living it. 

I miss that little light in all that darkness.