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My Father Above

The human mind has a way of burning facial features into memory so that a lifetime of years may pass without changing the way we remember someone. Couples who have been married fifty years are beholders of beauty not fully appreciated by those who see the old man and woman holding hands. Hands that were once powerful now covered by thin, wilting skin.

To me, my mother never aged past the age of twenty-eight, though she lived to be fifty-three. She was the most beautiful woman in the world. So beautiful that a man with a microphone had approached my mom to be kissed by a giant killer whale. He had walked past a section of the audience where contestants from a beauty pageant were seated, in order to get to her. I was proud that my mom was the one he picked to have her face licked by the massive mammal. But the kids in my fifth grade class did not need to see her chosen as the star of a Sea World show to think that she was cool.

Everyone knew that I had the coolest mom. Twenty years later my childhood friends still remember how she helped the teacher chaperone that day. When it was time for both groups of students to meet for lunch, my mom took a shortcut through the park by climbing over a wall in an undesignated area. My friends laughed and laughed climbing the wall, following my mom, taking the unauthorized shortcut.

Always cool. My mom was so different than loud, complaining Me. She was a quiet, gentle woman who never complained. I mean never. No matter how much pain she was in. I am sure this was instilled in her by a father who was not to be questioned, even when he slashed the part of my mother's soul that made her worthy of respectful boundaries. When I remember my mom, I think about all she went through in her life. I try to imagine the world that shaped who she was years before my birth. I think of how different her life may have been if it weren't for the fact that my grandfather was such an evil man. Then, always, I remember again my grandfather before he died. Frail and with an oxygen tank. Wilted evil not wilted beauty. My mom kissed him on the cheek as he sat there wheezing months before his death. A daughter's undeserved devotion.

"Is this the spot?" My daughter's voice interrupted, making me aware of my hand's pain and the cargo I was carrying with an unnatural grip.

"Yeah." I answered not sure of her question, setting the box of ashes on the sand. "Kelly, did you know that Gramma used to surf naked with me when I was in her belly?"

"Yes

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