when their hands were small

Title: when their hands were small
Written: August 30, 2016



This is how memory works:

You save the things they make when their hands are small,
their first shaky handwriting, their handprints,
fill in the blank, connect the dots, color in the lines (or not).
You put it all in a filebox and you save it as they grow and grow,
until they’re taller than you,
until they look like men even though they’re still boys.
You save it as they grow past you,
as they take their first steps out in the world without you.
You save the things their hands made when they were little
and still looked up to you.
You save it
and you save it
and you save it.
Maybe you pull it out now and again
and you look at what they once were,
so young, so small.
You save it in a filebox.

And then the water comes.
It leaks in, it drowns the things they made.
You still have them and a filebox full of dirty river water.

I went through it for you.
I saved what I could.
So much of it was ruined.
I couldn’t even tell what it had been.
It bled and it tore, and I peeled it apart,
and I looked at the things their hands made when they were young.
And I’m sorry.

You saved it.
They’re so big now.
They don’t even remember making it.
But you remember when they brought it home
and you saved it and you put it in a filebox,
and the water rushed in.
I’m sorry.

But here’s what I could salvage.
And even though so much of it is gone,
you still have them, and you have the memories
of the things they made when their hands were small.

(no subject)

If you were ever wondering about my handwriting, here it is. Also, I am actually incapable of writing a complete sentence entirely in cursive or entirely in print. I learned that when I went in to take the GRE and we had to (for some reason) copy down a paragraph in cursive.

update

My cousin's apartment: complete loss, almost nothing salvageable (living with her sister)

My uncle's house: waist-high water, not much salvageable (living with his stepdaughter)

My aunt's house: knee-high water, not much salvageable (living with my parents)

My sister's house: knee-high water, not much salvageable (living with her stepdaughter)

My uncle has lost two cars, my aunt has lost two cars, my sister has lost her car. My cousin who got no water in his house but was trapped by water on the roads has lost one car. Because my little sister and her husband moved their cars onto the median at their apartment complex, their vehicles were fine, though others in the complex weren't so lucky. Some schools didn't reopen 'til this week, some won't 'til next or the week after. Some kids are being bused in from over an hour away because their entire neighborhood or city or parish went underwater. Some people in my class are living in hotels because their house is being gutted and nothing could be saved.

I just scrolled through my flood tag on tumblr, which was a mistake.

My mom asked me to go through the box my aunt had of her kids' school things from kindergarten and first grade, and I almost broke down twice doing it. (Hence that poem from very early this morning.) I think of everything I've saved since I began writing, how scattered around it is - my parents are both packrats, so there are lots of things. My big sister lost most of her pictures from when she was little, stuff that has survived hurricanes (because she's had to evacuate twice before).

And now there's storms that everyone is watching, and it keeps raining every day.

*sporfle*

So, this evening, I was given the chance to explain to a group of Ph.D. candidates and Master's candidates what fanfiction is. None of them had any idea what it is. Then, one of them asked if the stories were usually short.

God, I wanted to laugh so long, so hard.