NOT FINISHED!!!!! Sharon Lynn Kieta Professor Lydia Dobrowolsky Rhetoric I 02 October 2013 Jump Back It is a muggy day in mid-August. My three year old son, Jonathon, and I lounge beside the shrunken creek bed in a sun-dappled wooded area by our home, gazing at the last tangerine kiss of summer. The jewel weed is in full bloom, the stems bowed with the weight of plump seed pods, ready to burst at the whisper of a breeze. My son’s head rests against my thigh and I twist and scrunch and twirl his blonde curls with my fingers, lazily watching the stream hiccough past us. Jump back. I remember. A man with a strong back, bronzed from endless hours of toiling in the hot summer sun, is leaning over the stream. His dark hair is gelled and waved into an arch over his right brow…an affectation based on Elvis Presley’s hairstyle of the ‘60’s. He reaches out to the orange flowers scattered beside the stream bed and flicks them one by one to release their hidden treasures. I laugh and shout and reach out with my childish fingers to stroke the flowers. It takes many tries before I learn the secret that sends showers of seeds springing to the ground at my feet. My Father and I watch and we chuckle at my success. He swings me into his arms and twirls me in circles before wrapping me into a tight bear hug and we stand for a moment, cheek to cheek, sharing in this age old ritual of summer’s end. Jump back. I kneel amongst the flowers in the meadow, well, to us they are flowers. My son kneels beside me, watching with rapt fascination as I carefully pluck the cloudy white puffball from its bed of dagger-shaped leaves. “Close your eyes,” I remind him, “and make a wish and if you wish hard and truly believe, your wish will come true. Now breathe in and blow!” Jump back. I kneel beside my Father in our back yard. My Father’s hands are thickened and rough, covered with hardened white patches of calluses from his endless days of working in the coal mines and the steel mills of Johnstown. I don’t mind their scratchy touch. I am fascinated by those hands: They are so large, but they are so gentle. They can topple boulders in the creek for a small child to hunt for crayfish, or they can gently pluck the spent dandelion blooms for a child to treasure. He reaches out and takes hold of one of these puffballs. “Close your eyes….” I do, I close my eyes and I clamp them shut and I purse my lips as I think of my wish. I have one! I blow out my breath and the seeds of the puffball scatter. Sapphire bright eyes crinkle and meet my hazel eyes and we grin. My father holds me as we watch the seeds of the puffball carrying my wishes to Heaven, for God alone to hear. Jump back. Jonathon and I are exploring the woods behind the playground today. He carries a thick wooden cudgel he picked up at the beginning of the trail. He takes aim at every bush and tree within reach and topples and chips the unoffending branches. He laughs, shouts, runs, jumps and leaps, a gyro of activity, as we search for treasures in the woods. Jump back. My sweaty hand is muffled in the grasp of my Father as we complete our Sunday walk. He gently shakes my hand loose and reaches high into a tree to peel off a blackened twig from a branch above my head. He nibbles and tears at the bark, chews thoughtfully for a few minutes, then spits out the remnants at our feet. Now it is my turn. I reach up and take the twig from his proffered grasp. Carefully placing my tiny teeth over my Father’s nibble marks I suck at the spicy sweet sap of the black Birch branch: Wintergreen flavor squirts onto my tongue, numbing it for just a second. Following my Father, I also chew the bark slowly, extracting the last of the juice, and then spit out the remains in the dirt at our feet. Father and daughter, and Sunday afternoon rituals, repeated time and time again, spring, summer, fall and winter. Jump back. I sit alone on the bench at the supermarket. A tow headed boy of seven struggles towards me, pushing his grocery laden cart. Warm chocolate eyes meet mine and I smile, full of love and warmth for this special gift from God. I hand him our debit card and I whisper those four magic numbers that will unlock the money he needs to finish his task. Confidently, he struts to the conveyor belt of the self-checkout line and carefully lifts out each item from the shopping cart, scanning them one by one before placing them into the flimsy plastic bags. My son glances up at me in between packages and grins. One more ritual added to an ever-growing system of Mother/Son activities. One more memory added to an endless list of memories. Jump back.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 17:47:47 +0000
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