Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Beautiful Boy
I read the news of my nephew’s death on Facebook.
I knew it was coming but I didn’t in the way that anyone older finds it so hard to believe that a younger person would die first. We think dying will be linear and orderly with people lined up by age, everyone waiting their turn. Only they don’t. Some people take cuts in line. Others stand patiently for years, eyeing the progress of the line, being ignored by fate, watching others move on, having nothing but happenstance to blame for their long, long wait.
In the comments box, I wrote, “He was my sister’s beautiful boy.” Even though it was nearly a half century ago, I remember him sitting on my sister’s lap, a beautiful blond boy with brown eyes. He fidgeted and squirmed, always wanting something, to be somewhere else, to change what was happening. And she seemed that way, too, uncomfortable, stressed, like so many of us were when the reality of having babies sank in. How long will I be a hostage? we thought. It was a clammy, frightful feeling. Will I ever feel free again? Will I ever shed this skin, this second skin that is stuck to mine like plaster?
She wore her hair in a french twist. It was perfect and very Hollywood. She was thin and blond with hip bones that flared just below her waist. She was older than me by six years, sophisticated, enigmatic. She divulged nothing, sat curled up in an overstuffed chair after her beautiful boy went to bed, smoking long cigarettes and drinking beer. She and her husband had struck out for L.A. on their own a few years before. They’d sold their tiny house in Detroit and packed their silver Corvette with their clothes and favorite records. They moved into an apartment with a carport and she worked at the gas company while he sold cash registers to stores. They lived the California life and became orphans.
For a long time no one went to see them. It was too far. And then people went to see them but they stopped. It became too far again.
My nephew grew up. And I would see him every several years and it would always seem as if he thought I knew more than I did about his life, he wanted me to be wise when I wasn’t, to intervene in a lifetime tangle of his family’s knot, to free the hostage and supervise the new peace. But I never did what he wanted. Because I didn’t know how. His hostage was, after all, my big sister. She was impervious. Varnished many layers. Impenetrable. So I left it there. Left it. Dropped it. No. Set it gently on the grass. And then I disappeared.
When I saw the photo of my nephew’s son on Facebook, his young adolescent face in profile, I wanted to touch his cheek with my fingers. His was the face of my nephew and my sister and of a hundred relatives in scrapbooks and picnics. But I’d never seen him in person nor his brother nor his sister. And now their father was dead. If there had been a rope connecting me to this boy and his brother and sister, it had fallen in a pile the day he died.
Oh. I think. This is the collateral damage of family discord, these children lost to me is the price I should pay. And then I think. No. I should go there and pick up the rope. I can be the kind of person who picks up the rope.
That is the person I want to be now.
__________________________
Originally published in 2016
42 Comments on “Beautiful Boy”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
love you red!
Sorry for your loss and his.
This is heart-wrenchingly honest and beautiful.
Reblogged this on Red's Wrap.
So, are you going to share the rest of the story with us? Did you pick up the rope? If so, where did it lead?
“No. Set it gently on the grass.”
Wow.
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I found this essay from the Yeah Write community and I just wanted to congratulate you on winning this week. Also, I’m very sorry about the loss of your nephew. You should definitely pick up the rope. Life is too short not to.
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Your sister’s experience was ours, too. We loaded up a U-Haul and left Ohio for Seattle in 1974. People seldom visited, and when our son was born, we were on an island without support or the wisdom of generations. Had to remember that that was why we moved in the first place.
Good luck to you as you reacquaint. I hope the reality is as satisfying as you hope it will be.
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My condolences. I hope you are able to pick uo the rope.
Thank you
I am so sorry for your loss, but am hopeful that through that loss you will be able to pick up the rope and gain even more with your nephew’s children.
Thank you
“Picking up the rope.” Yes. Great image. Great story.
Thank you
So sorry for your loss. It’s definitely funny when you think about how removed we become with our own family. Now you have me thinking I should pick up the rope too. Great piece. I think it’ll stick with me for quite some time.
Thank you – I think there’s a lot of rope around to pick up. 🙂
Picking up the rope, a poetic image. I know exactly what you mean.
I’m so very sorry for your loss. This will stick with me for awhile, the way your typically do.
This has given me perspective. I am going through something similar. A person in need of intervention. Thank you.
My heart is in knots right now. This was beautiful, tragic and undeniably powerful. Your honesty was incredibly captivating.
So sad, but beautifully and powerfully written. I hope you pick up the rope.
Thank you
Icoupd not гesist commenting. Very well wгitten!
Thank you
As always, your words make me think. Right now I’m thinking of all the family members that I know of, but don’t know. Lost along the way of busy lives. Would I even know if one died? Or a new one was born? And then I think how society has changed, that you learned of this loss through social media. I don’t know if I find that sad, or if I’m thankful you had that connection. I hope you pick up that rope.
You started me thinking about how physical distance has interrupted my relationships with some family members. It can seem like we are so close but we know so little about each other because so much time has passed. I hope you will find a way to pick up the rope, Jan. I’m wondering if I need to do the same.
I am so sorry for loss Jan.
Thanks, Lynn
Sincerest condolences
Thank you
Deepest sympathy, Jan. Life and death can be so very complicated.
So true. Thank you.
You’re welcome, Jan. Take care.
Let’s pick up the rope.
Jan I am so sorry for your loss. The loss of a family member you’ve grown away from is in some ways even more devastating.
Thank you, Vanessa
i am so sorry.
I’m so sorry about your nephew.