An End to Innocence

Can you pinpoint that moment in your childhood when your life changed? That moment where the veil of innocent belief was lifted, and you got a glimpse of what life is really like? For most, that moment whispers by barely noticed, a breeze in an otherwise windless life. For others, that moment avalanches down on us, shaking the foundation of our very lives and burying our innocence under the rubble of childhood.

My moment began with the phone ringing on a bright Saturday morning in February. I heard my father answer the phone and listen to the person on the other end. Not more than a few seconds into the conversation I heard him sit abruptly in the nearest chair, with loud, harsh bleating noises issuing from his mouth. I turned from my spot on the couch at these sounds and came to realize that they were sobs; I’d never heard my father cry before.

I watched as my mom rushed over to him, concern showing on her face, as my father staggered through a few more sentences and hung up. When she asked him what was wrong, he could only sob, shoulders shaking, before finally choking out “Johnny’s dead”.

I knew what that meant. It meant that my beloved uncle with his angelic face and beautiful spirit was gone; forever. Never again would he cheer me up by just saying the word “smile”, nor would he ever swing me up in his arms and “fly” me around the yard like an airplane. Never again would I be able to watch him put the miniature town together under the tree at Christmas, or just climb up on his lap and have him spend hours telling me stories.

He was gone, forever, just like that, in the ringing of the phone. I turned away from my parents, curling into a tight little ball as those words, “Johnny’s dead”, reverberated through my brain, shaking my world and crumbling it to pieces with each staccato run through my mind.

I pressed my face hard into the rough, woven fabric of the couch as, with a final roar, the words stopped machine gunning through my head, leaving nothing but silence and a tremendous pain that searched desperately for a point of release.

A single tear escaped the prison of my closed eyelids to sluice down my cheek and fall, splashing onto the pulverized remains of my 8 year old world.