Precious Pear #12

When she was fourteen, she became the island’s youngest kumu hula. When she was thirty-seven, she became the youngest widow. She always said Papa was her twin soul. Mom was full of overly-poetic sayings like that. Whether she actually believed them or just liked the way they sounded, I never knew. I was only in grade school when it happened, but I still remember the endless stream of “I’m so sorry” fruit plates and “we’re here for you” haupia . The accident must have been pretty damn terrible because to this day nobody will describe it to us. If Mom lost her faith after that, nobody blamed her.

August 14, 1963: I saw him fore dem took away yesterday and saw da blood flow back inta da ground dat gave him up. I could see da minit his eyes changed and da beauty dat bilong him passed to da world he was meant fo. Dat nait da skies cried fo da beauty it lost afore it should. Cain’t pretend I wen wish had come later, but I ain’t in no hurry, cuz I know we go hui in da next world and us bein on earth just da first day in all da years comin.

It felt like the water was closing in all around me- I had to get out. I applied to nearly every college in the States and chose the one that sounded least familiar. I promised her I’d come back when I was done, but I never did. Neither did my little brother when he followed me three years later. I don’t think she ever forgave us for that. She was always so damn stubborn. Wouldn’t even move to New Hampshire to live with her daughter and only grandchildren. Instead she only saw them once a year, if she was lucky. Had to stay at “home”. How can you call something a home with no family around you?

January 5, 1974: Sapos you go an drop a bunch o seeds in da ocean at da same time; dem no gat stay wantaim fo da end. Dis ocean it got diff’ren plans for dem all. Some sindaun top, some fall. Da currents go an push an pull em to diff’ren pieces of earth. Fo sho it breaks my heart fo da yangpela ta never know me as yo kin should, but it no can be any way but. I got da Wailua in my veins and da Pu'u-ka'ala in my lungs. No can sooner leave dis island den walk outta my own skin. Ho, if I was ta fall any place but dis place, da good Lord might no figure where ta look.

Sometime after we all moved away, she must have stopped caring. Spent all her time laying out on the beach, smoking those disgusting cigarettes again. We all thought she’d eventually remarry, but as far as I know, she never even went on another date with a man after Papa. It was sad to watch really, knowing that she spent the rest of her life wishing she had been taken, too. If she wasn’t so lazy, I would have worried she’d do something foolish to end it all.

October 2, 1983: Yu see days and months and years pass by ya and yu start gettin tired of dat safe way about people. Yu begin an do what it is yu want ta do… what yu shouldha been doin all along. Ain’t no reason ta hold on ta dis body- ain’t what yu take with. Not my spirit that be smoking, and t’aint nogat wrong widdit. We all come an go wit da same, no matter what we do here, oh yeah no? Real love, dat be what happens in da forever. But dat don’t mean yu got to ignore samting else while yu here. I know he’ll be forgivin me for it and I’ll lettim have his forty years dancin wit angels 'fore me.

Bad habits and inactivity aside, I still thought we’d have her for awhile longer. Actually, I was convinced that in a few years, when she finally started feeling her age, we’d finally convince her to move into a home here where we could watch over her. Sometimes I wonder if it surprised her, too. Or maybe she spent the last couple years fearing that the end was just around the corner. It’s that kind of stuff that makes me terrified of growing old, like maybe a quick death in the middle of life is the way to go. That way you never have to worry about it.

July 16, 2006: I feel it creepin on in. Not da kine sad heaviness dat way yu hear tell. Mo like a light air fillin up my bones so dat each morning I wake a little closer to Heven til one day I git ta be more of dat next world den dis. Nothing yu can do about it wen yu pau, so no reason to be happy no be sad. Just gonna happen.

She didn’t even want a funeral. Only wanted to be burned and spread out on the beach as soon as possible. We couldn’t make it out there with such short notice, so the money was wired to us. The only other thing she left to anyone was a box she had mailed to me. Nothing but some old records, a photo album, and her journal. Probably full of how much she hated us for leaving her alone and how miserable she was without Papa around.

Some people just give up too soon.

Lively Lime #12

I had lived a good life. I was a good person. It was only proper that I had died peacefully in my sleep, as a healthy old woman. A death reserved for the lucky few. I remember taking a shower, putting on my cotton pajamas, as I had done every evening for decades. I remember laying on the crisp and clean sheets that July night, next to my husband, as a cool breeze floated through the screened window. I remember closing my eyes slowly as I drifted into the night….

And then I was greeted by fanfare. "WELCOME TO HEAVEN!!!", two winged angels in grass skirts cheered loudly at me. They quickly draped flower garlands around my neck before I could say anything. A spectacled man dressed in a sky blue tuxedo with the name tag "Petey" smiled and gestured towards a brightly lit boulevard lined with white buildings. Everything was happening so fast. And the ground looked…fluffy. White and fluffy. A little boy in a white vest ran up to me and opened a small box.

"Cigarette, ma'am?"

"Um…I thought those were bad for us. Why are you offering one to me?"

"Oh no. These are Seraphim 100s, made with cherubimleaf. Additive-free. Even the Boss smokes them. Please, try one."

I still looked skeptical.

"Besides, what do you have to worry about, ma'am? You're already dead."

Good point. I took the cigarette. It lit up automatically when I put it to my lips. Amazing.

Petey put his hand on my shoulder. "Please come with me. I can take you to your residence."

I followed, all the while thinking…Hawaiian angels, flower leis, white neon lights, cigarettes. Was this Heaven or Vegas?

After a short walk on the fluffy yet surprisingly solid street, we came to a charming ivory-colored cottage. A little garden filled with white roses lined the front yard. Next to the front door hung a small wooden sign, engraved "Julia Daniels." Everything about the house was perfect, except that it didn't have a roof. "No need for a roof. It never rains here," said Petey, in reaction to my puzzled face.

Of course, how silly of me. Heaven, duh.

"This will be your piece of paradise for eternity. We hope you will be comfortable. Mary and Elizabeth will visit you soon and introduce you to your neighbors. In the meantime, enjoy your new surroundings, and congratulations on making it into our community." And with that, Petey closed the door and left.

The house was actually quite small, only two rooms, but comfortable. One room was decorated in country classic style, with green pastel fabrics and big windows that let the warm sun in. In the corner was a small birdcage. I gasped.

"Pippin!!" I ran over and looked at the tiny green parakeet inside. The markings on his sleek feathers were unmistakable. It was my first childhood pet. God, I cried so much when he died after 7 years. I opened the cage door and he hopped out onto my wrinkled old finger, no different than he did when it was the chubby finger of a 9-year old. I could sense his words, "I've been waiting for you, Julia. I've missed you." I almost cried again.

With Pippin now perched on my shoulder, I explored the rest of the house. One thing that prominently stood out was a white reclining armchair in the middle of the second room. A large white flatscreen computer monitor hung from the ceiling in front of it. I went over and sat down. A white keyboard popped out from the side of the chair. I laughed when I looked at the logo on it.

Apparently, Heaven uses Macs.

Guess it suits the decor, I thought. I switched on the monitor. I almost couldn't believe what I saw.

"Welcome to LifeVision, a feature of your own personal paradise, where you can watch your entire life recorded on HHHDTV at your leisure. Also, with the easy push of a button, you can activate the new LifeStats function and calculate the frequency of any activity you engaged in while alive. Please contact Noah at the help desk if you have any questions. Smile, as we take a quick photo for our records." A little camera suddenly flashed, and my black & white picture appeared on the screen. "Julia Daniels, registered member since July 12, 2065."

When I was younger, I had always joked about wanting to know how many times I had said the word "potato", or how often I cursed. How many times did I sneeze in my life? How many hugs did I get? How many cupcakes did I eat? And here was the machine to do it. I was really starting to love Heaven.

And so for quite some time....a day, a week, a year, 10 years, who knew anymore?....I relived the happy moments of my long life. I watched my 5-yr old self playing catch on the beach with my parents. I saw myself in the high school ski club. My first "A" in law school. My band, the Goldfish Royals. Nathan. His excited face on the rollercoaster at Coney Island. Our wedding. Traveling across Europe and Australia together. Starting my own firm. Retiring and taking care of our grandchildren. Snorkeling in the Caribbean for our 50th anniversary. At some point, I dozed off. How long was I asleep?

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I opened the door. It was Nathan! And in a snazzy white suit, no less. He had flower garlands too. No cigarette, though.

"Surprise, Julia. Miss me?" , the little wrinkles forming around his eyes as he grinned. I hugged him for hours. We walked into the house, not noticing that the sign by the door had now magically changed to "Julia and Nathan Daniels."

"I want to show you the most wonderful contraption." Then I stopped, and it was my turn to grin.

Where there had been one armchair, there were now two, placed side by side and close enough for an old married couple to hold hands as they reminisced for as long as they ever wished.

We had made it. We were in Heaven, and it would be forever.



"Want to find out how many times we said 'I love you?'"


Pippin just chirped happily in the background.

Playful Peach #12

My mother died when I was 22. She had ovarian cancer that rapidly became stomach cancer and the treatment for that is a pine box (so I overheard a snarky doctor say). I knew that it was coming as soon as the doctor said it and it gave me this dull pain right under my ribs almost as if I had been punched a long time ago and the bruise stayed deep inside me. While my friends were moving into big cities, sleeping with random men and “finding themselves” I was planning a funeral and trying to stop my Uncle Irving from grabbing my ass. I felt suffocated by the visitors and by the constant flux of scallop potatoes and tuna casseroles that seemed to multiply in the kitchen. The worst part of all of it was I think I was more upset about my loss of freedom than by my mother’s death. Well, maybe not more upset but at least equally so. I needed to get out and fortunately for me my chance came sooner than I thought.

My mother had been planning to go on a cruise of the Caribbean islands as soon as she discovered she was dying. She told me that dying meant you got to do things you always meant to but never quite got around to it. She died two weeks before her ship was set to take off. At first I felt kind of bad for even thinking I would go on the cruise in my dead mother’s place but I was set at ease by my sister Cindy’s urgings, “Mom would have wanted you there anyway Sadie, you were always her favorite.” She meant it to cheer me up but even mentioning how my mother thought of me realize that I had to think of it in the past tense. She would never ‘think’ of me again.

The moment I walked on the cruise I realized what a bad idea it was. For starters, I was never told that it was a cruise for people 60 and over, (I thought maybe I could meet a man on this cruise, not see one die.) Apparently this was a cruise for single elderly people to mingle and fall in love in their ‘twilight years.’ I was miserable as soon as I walked on the ship and just planned to sleep for the next 3 weeks. One positive (at least to me) side effect of being depressed is that you can sleep for 12 hours like you did when you were a kid. But, when I walked into my room I realized that wasn’t going to happen. I pulled myself through the tiny door to my room dragging my overstuffed suitcases behind me only to discover that I had a 72-year-old roommate

“Hi, I’m Agnes, I hope you don’t mind that I smoked in here,” she said in a gruff voice that indicated to me that she had been smoking for quite awhile and that my minding could really do nothing about it.

The room (which was tiny) was filled with smoke; I could barely see her face. She was decked out like all the old ladies were for the cruise complete with a lei and sandals that showed her yellowed toenails. I coughed a hello and tried to see where my bed was. I am in hell I thought to myself, I was selfish and now God is punishing me by making me die at 22 by second hand smoke. I wanted to cry, which was easy since the smoke in the room was already making my eyes tear up. Agnes finished her cigarette and then began to notice that something was wrong.

“Are you okay darling?” she asked looking more like a nice grandmother than the evil smoke-welding devil she was when I walked in. I shrugged and felt the tears begin to flow as the words poured from my mouth in an unstoppable stream of thoughts. I told her about losing my mother, losing my 20’s and my life and she listened with the intent eyes of someone that you had known for a long time, not only 2 minutes in a smoke filled room on the geriatric cruise 2k6 extravaganza. Her kind eyes made me feel a little better, but more than that it was just having someone listen to me talk. Once I was finished I felt like all my emotion had been poured out like an empty glass.

“You know what you need,” she said fighting back a cough, “you need to get out and have a good time.”

Right old lady, you can show me a good time when you are practically dying, I thought to myself but what I said was, “Well…should we go out then?”

“Yes,” she said more excited with every word, “but first, lets take a few swigs.”

She then pulled out a flask that looked like it was from the 1920’s filled with something that tasted like it was even older but made me feel a little better. After I was sufficiently tipsy Agned decided to show me what her world was like. We went upstairs and played shuffleboard until dark and she talked about all the places she had seen and lovers she had. She told me about a young girl with a lot of dreams from Indiana that ended up leaving her husband and joining the Peace Corps to build wells in Africa. I was so amazed by her bravery and was convinced with every conversation that I should try to live my life just like her. At 22 I felt like I hadn’t really done anything yet but Agnes assured me that living through your mother dying meant that you were much older than you thought. After shuffleboard we got more drinks and flirted with some old men (alright, I mainly watched her flirt they were like my grampy’s age…..eww), and then danced a little bit. It was about 4 am by the time we stumbled back to our room, our feet heavy and happy from dancing all night. I smiled to myself glad that I had finally found a companion even if she was 72 years old.

By the time I got into bed the sun was just starting to peak over the ocean. Finally things were starting to get better I thought to myself. I was having fun and even laughing again something I thought wouldn’t happen for a long time. Even though I was 22 and supposed to be living it up it had been a long time since I had watched the sunrise. I leaned over to tell Agnes to look outside when I noticed she was turned into the wall. I thought she was just asleep so I sweetly whispered good night to her. When she didn’t respond I felt like something was wrong so I walked over to her bed only to see her eyes rolled back into her head. She must be sleeping I thought to myself, this can’t be happening to me again, not another death so soon. I tried helplessly to do CPR on a smoker of 60 plus years and realized that it was helpless. I had obviously thought life was looking up for me too soon.

Mighty Mango #12

I don't know why I started working in a nursing home. I made up a joke: when people ask, I say, "I thought it said nursery. I love kids." Weak laughs, usually, but it's better than "I don't know," followed by "ah," and a few moments of head nodding. People don't ask quite as much as they used to, of course. I mean, I've been working here... Christ, forever and a day, it feels like.

I guess I thought it would be romantic. Or unexpected. Like those stories you always read, about old people with tons of personality, tons of life in them. Someone's salty old grandma with a zillion stories, who can totally keep up with the young whipper snappers. Or maybe old people, reconnecting with romance, and life.

You read those stories, places. Newspapers. A rash of elderly STDs because the guys can't keep it in their pants. Viagra and everything. So you get this image in your head. "Old People: Basically Like You And Me." I'm not saying I imagined PlayStations, but bridge. Cards. Volleyball?

That isn't how it is.

The people living where I work have been, mostly, abandoned. Their families are still alive, healthy, and often numerous. But they don't visit. Yet that is all these old folks talk about: when their son, daughter, or grandchildren will visit next. And when they visited last. I know. It sounds like a cliche: something you'd read in a bad story written by a mean-spirited girl who just didn't like her job.

Surely, they have other things. A lifetime of memories. Wisdom with which to see the world. It just can't be true that they sit around and talk about their bastard children, who loathe the smell of that place (is it urine? is it the low-quality cafeteria food? little of both?) so much that they abandon their parents there.

But it is true. That's how everyone is. None of them even speak to me--and I'm young, here to help them!

"Beatrice," I say. "It's time to change your clothes, dear."

Beatrice is 83 years old. That makes her 60 years older than me. I take care of her.

I imagine life stories for all of the people here because I'm too scared to ask them anything about themselves. So, in my head, Beatrice was an awkward child growing up, and remains an awkward old person. She has a hard time making friends here because she thinks no one likes her, so she stays in her room. She watches Jeopardy! every day at 4:30pm, during dinner, because she thinks Alex Trebek is a nice boy.

I don't know if any of that's true, but couldn't it be?

She doesn't take her gown off, though: she just looks at me, right in the eyes. "Elsie, dear," she says, startling the living fuck out of me.

"What!" I gasp.

I realize I've been rude, but damn, it's the first time she's ever said a word to me. I can literally not remember a single previous conversation we've ever had--and now she's interrupting me while I try to take care of her, to change her? How does she know my name?! Oh. Name tag. That must be it. I work here, so I have a name tag.

"Elsie, dear, I'm feeling a little ill. Would you give Felix a message for me?"

"I... what? Yes."

"Tell him I can't meet him for lunch today. Thank you, sweetheart."

Meet... for lunch? Beatrice doesn't meet people for lunch. She does not. Felix? That guy hasn't left his room in a hundred years! I've never seen them hang out.

Oh, that poor woman. I immediately conclude that Beatrice's mental health has taken a turn for the worse, and go to speak to my supervisor, Craig. His office door is always open, but I've never really had occasion to speak with him before. He and the other employees here went out for drinks and things sometimes, but I wasn't really interested.

"Craig?"

"Ms. Berry... how can I help you?" He seemed confused that I was there. Well, no surprise. I'm a bit of a model employee: I always do my work, quietly, without bothering anyone. I don't bother my supervisors. I don't bother Craig.

I told him about the strange incident. He refused to seem surprised. He just nodded along, until I finished my story.

"So, pretty weird, right?"

"Why would it be?"

"Because that woman never eats lunch with anyone. She's a total loner, Craig. Felix? Felix hasn't left his room in a hundred years." I was repeating myself, I knew, but Craig hadn't heard the thought the first time.

"Elsie... those two eat together every day, dear."

Dear? Dear!

"Don't call me dear!"

Why was I getting so angry?

I tried to stand, but slipped a little bit, tumbled, and before I knew it I had hit the ground. Hard. Hard enough to hear a dull, sickening snap as I went down.

I woke up a few hours later, in what I can only assume was the city hospital. Thank God they'd taken me out of that urine-soaked hellhole. I resolved to quit my job immediately the next morning.

"Ms. Berry?"

That was me. Elsie Berry.

"Yes?"

"You have visitors."

And in came three little boys and two girls, none of whom I recognized. Two adults--their parents, I guess? They looked concerned. The woman was on the verge of tears! And she looked like... someone. Like my mom, a little bit. Why were they here?

"Auntie Elsie Auntie Elsie. Are you okay?"

"Broken hip," said the doctor.

The woman burst into tears. "That place! It's that place, it's a hellhole!"

"Who the fuck is Auntie Elsie?" I said.

"Shh. Honey. Honey. Elaine. It's not a hellhole. They said she was having a hard day, that she was right in the middle of an episode. Yelling at Dr. Craig."

Episode?

"Doctor" Craig?

Who the fuck are these...

Oh, God.

Tart Tangerine #12

“You’re not what I was expecting.”

“You’re not what I was expecting either,” she said. She sat there, dressed like she was at some Hawaiian picnic in August, a couple of leis draped around her neck, a cigarette in one hand. She looked like an old woman, somewhere in her sixties or seventies. She reminded me of my Aunt Mabel. Then, what she said sank in.

“Wait…what?! How can I not be what you were expecting? You’re GOD!” I cried. And so she was. Five minutes ago I had been enjoying a nice steak dinner at the local Sizzler, when I felt a shooting pain in my chest and left arm. The last thing I remember was falling out of my chair and hitting the floor, the taste of a New York strip steak still on my lips. Then I blinked and was here. It looked like a cabin up in the northern woods of California. But the place was empty, except for this woman sitting there on a deck chair, smoking. She’d just explained that I’d entered the afterlife and introduced herself. I was so shocked at her appearance that I’d said the first thing that popped into my head.

“Why, free will honey. A lot is made down there about my supposed omniscience, but it’s a bit of a crock. Oh sure, I know everything that has happened, and I can tell you what’s happening right now, anywhere. But tell the future? If I could tell you what was going to happen, what choices you were going to make, why then, they wouldn’t be choices, would they? They’d be preordained, and that’s not the way I designed things.”

I was a bit rocked by this. I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting a long theological discussion. Then again, I wasn’t expecting to die either. I was expecting to eat a nice steak and make it home in time for “House.” Instead, I get this – a personal audience with the Almighty, but not in any form I was expecting. She smiled at me, as if reading my thoughts, which she probably was.

“I know, a bit more than you were looking for.” She smiled kindly, with the infinite patience of someone who’s gone through this whole song and dance countless times. “You were expecting harps and clouds, perhaps? Maybe an old man with a long white beard? Perhaps a burning bush?”

I latched onto the familiar imagery. “Well…yeah. Or, based on some of the things I’ve done, maybe I was expecting pitchforks and horns.”

She chuckled loudly. “Oh come on now, you haven’t been that bad. Sure, you haven’t gone to church every weekend, and you could have shown your father more respect. But I grade on a curve, and you’re hardly near the bottom.”

“Well that’s a relief.” Then something clicked into place. “So does that mean the Christians had it right all along? It’s not Vishnu or Allah or Buddha?”

“Nope. They’re all right.”

“But how can that be? Each religion believes something different. And they all believe they’re the only one.”

“Marketing kid. Marketing. Old P.T. Barnum had it right. You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you can’t please all of the people all of the time. So I don’t try.”

“But…that can’t be right!” I insisted, forgetting for a moment whom I was addressing.

“And why not? I’m powerful enough to create the universe, all-knowing enough to see into your soul, I can take any form I want, but I’m not smart enough to realize that it takes different strokes for different folks?” She smiled indulgently at me, like she was lecturing a four year old.

“But then…why is it a basic tenant of all religions that they are the one true path?”

“Exclusivity junior. You gotta have something to attract them to the faith. Why join one church when any will do? Why tithe 10% to the Tabernacle when the Catholics only want five bucks every Sunday. Why spend time being lectured to about the pits of Hell when the Jews don’t believe in it? Why give up your Friday nights when everything’s already closed on Sunday? You gotta give the folks a reason to come in. Gotta put butts in seats. But really, at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that you believe.”

I was shocked at the bluntness that She was displaying. Needless to say, while I hadn’t been the most God-fearing man in the world, I still went to church enough to know how God talked and this sure wasn’t it. Alright, God can assume any form She wants, so if she wants to look like an old lady who you’d expect to see gambling in Atlantic City, who am I to say She’s wrong? But God didn’t talk about “butts in seats.” Not the God I knew. It was all “thees” and “thous” and whatnot.

“So let me get this straight…if every religion is right, does that mean those nutjobs who strap bombs to themselves and blow up discos are up here somewhere?”

“Of course not. Don’t be silly. I said every religion was right, not that every interpretation is right. Plenty of idiots have done things in My name that I don’t approve of. Those are the sorts of people who fail the curve. I’ve always been about peace and love. So killing people in the name of peace…well that’s a bit like screwing for virginity, isn’t it?” She laughed at the joke. “I’ve always loved that particular turn of phrase. Now come on now, Junior. Our time is short and I know there’s one more question you’re burning to ask, so ask away.”

“Alright. So why do you let bad things happen to good people?”

“I don’t. I don’t ‘let’ anything happen. Einstein was right. I don’t play dice with the universe. Not for a long time. I set up first principles, gave you free will, then let the machine run on its own. I observe, I know, but I do not interfere. All the evil in the world, that’s just the depths of human depravity. Which is only exceeded by your capacity to do good. That, perhaps, was my greatest success. For every Hitler, there’s a Jonas Salk. For every Pol Pot, a Mother Theresa. And usually more than one. So when you see bad things happening in the world, and you feel that nothing can be done, look inside yourself and find some way to make the day a little better for someone else.

“And now,” She said, “our time is up.”

“CLEAR!” A jolt went through my body and my eyes fluttered open. “We’ve got a pulse! Let’s get him to the ambulance.” I was felt myself lifted off the floor and placed on a stretcher. And as I was wheeled out of the restaurant I struggled to thank the paramedic who was pushing me toward the ambulance.

“Don’t thank me, pal. Thank the woman at the next table who did CPR until we arrived. If not for her, you’d be talking to God right now.” I managed a weak chuckle.

"Brother, if only you knew."

Brash Blackberry #12

When I tell friends who met my grandmother before her death what she was really like, they’re usually surprised.

“Come on. There’s no way she said shit like that,” one friend told me when I told stories about the real her.

Sometimes at family functions, Grandma would tell her children and grandchildren stories of her past and we would all gather in a semi-circle, hoping to hear something we didn’t know. We made a rule that anyone 17 or older could hear the stories, as we liked to think of them as equivalent to R-rated films. They were usually graphic and full of obscenities, and only during the telling of these stories would she talk like this.

Grandma King was an artifact – she’d seen the world change and lived to tell of it. As a military nurse, she saw World War II up close and personal. She claimed to havegiven Clark Gable a hand job three years before his death. (She’d add on the end, “Of course, this was before I was married. But still, it was exhilarating.”) Grandma even survived a rapturous tornado that took the life of her husband and a few of her neighbors.

She was full of stories, but only one of her stories struck me on every emotional level. And to this day, that story defines her existence in my mind.

***

Mary awoke when the bombs started to drop. She’d fallen asleep in a hospital bed the night before, after treating a petty officer that had burned his hand trying to set a makeshift fire outside of his quarters.

As a 22-year-old nurse at Pearl Harbor, Mary never expected to hear the sounds she heard. Dazed, she stepped out of the hospital’s back door, greeted by the sight of mountainous pillars of black smoke. She looked overhead, seeing a swarm of Japanese fighter planes. The pilots dropped bombs and torpedoes at battleship row, the massive naval ships assigned to protect the Pacific.

Mary ran 1,000 feet from the hospital, not caring that a bullet or bomb could graze her. She needed to see what was happening at the bay. When she neared the edge of the shore, she saw a Japanese pilot land a bomb into the innards of the USS Arizona. Many officers on deck jumped ship in a desperate attempt to save their lives. Mary stood mesmerized at that moment, knowing that in just a few seconds the ship would explode from the inside out.

When it exploded, Mary got an expansive look at the gaping hole in the side of the Arizona. She saw a man hanging from the edge of the newly created hole, his torso impaled by a steel rod and flesh burned beyond repair. Mary threw up.

She had never seen anything like this before. Hell, she’d never even had a patient die in front of her. She had a feeling everything – her existence, the lives of everyone here, the world – was about to drastically change.

After the pilots were out of bombs, they began shooting machine gun ammunition into any American they could aim at. Mary immediately ran back to hospital with a clearer head than before.

When she came back, she was ordered by a doctor to begin allocating all available medical supplies and put them out on tables. And as she began prepping the spaces for the dead and dying, hundreds of wounded soldiers came through the front doors, with burns, gun shot wounds and the like.

***

She was changed. My guess is that when she looked into the abyss of that ship and saw death so close, she learned the fragility of her life. She no longer held onto the trivial things and in turn, her thoughts and actions were lived without remorse.

At her funeral, we blew up the last photo taken of her. It was taken at the Sheraton hotel lobby six hours after she visited the USS Arizona memorial in Honolulu. The photo shows Grandma wearing several leis, smoking a cigarette, and relaxing like she was telling one of her stories.

The night that photo was taken, the 87-year-old woman died in her hotel bed. It wasn’t the cigarettes, as many of us thought it might be. Her heart had just stopped beating.

Most of her family, myself included, came to the conclusion that Hawaii was the best place for her to pass away. She looked back at Pearl Harbor as the real beginning of her life and at the Arizona memorial, she decided it was finally okay if she didn’t continue on.

She had done her part.

TKO Question #12

Be inspired by this photograph. Write. For example, you could describe the picture, write about a scene that occurs in the picture, someone has memories of this picture, etc. Just ideas not limitations.

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Responses

* Precious Pear
Lively Lime
* Mighty Mango
* Playful Peach
Brash Blackberry
Tart Tangerine