Ode To a Four-Year-Old's Memory

My mom woke me up early.
I couldn’t tell the exact time,
I was only four.
She grabbed my baby brother Josh,
and we walked across
dewy grass in between houses
until we got to Steve and Della’s door.
Mom knocked, Della opened.
Mom handed Josh to Della and then
she was gone. Della told me to
lay down and go back to sleep
but I couldn’t. Josh started to cry,
the carpet made me itch and squirm.
I pretended to sleep
but I couldn’t keep my eyes closed.

The next morning I peeled
my chaffed face off the floor,
and I looked around.
Still no Mom,
still no Dad.
Neither of them came
to get us that day. First,
I didn’t understand why.
Yesterday was a completely normal day.
Dad went to work. We went to bed.
The only difference is that Mom left
shortly after Dad did. Which really
didn’t make sense. Dad
worked the night shift and mom
usually went to bed with us.
Why did she leave?

Eventually Mom returned. She
changed in the last two days.
Her face looked older and her eyes looked
tired when she walked through the door.
She knelt down to give me a hug, and burst
tears, she wrapped her arms around me and told me,
“He’s not coming back, daddy’s gone.”
I asked where he went. She told me
there was an accident and daddy went to heaven,
to live with God and his angels.
I don’t remember if I cried. I don’t remember
anything past that, except for
the day of the funeral.

Mom thought I was too young to go, too
young to understand. Chances are that I
wouldn’t have understood what went on that day.
I was left with family friends, friends I had never
met before. They were old, gramma and grampa’s age.
The old woman fed me vegetable soup full
of alphabet noodles. I was excited because I knew
the alphabet quite well, Daddy had taught me
the A B C’s with a song. She
tried to get me to sing the song, but
I didn’t want to. Instead I spelled my name
with letters and watched cartoons.
I don’t remember the old people’s faces.
I certainly don’t remember their names.
I remember that the Smurfs were on tv,
there were letters in my soup and that daddy
went to live with the angels.