Images of You

(Or the Lack Thereof...)

By: Alex Scofi

Images of You (Or the Lack Thereof...)

I look at picture of me and my Mom smiling in frame.

I turn my head slightly to see you smiling right next us.

If I don’t focus on the border I can almost pretend that you were actually there.

That you actually care.

Yeah, I’ve propped up your old picture not quite next to, but on top of, almost to imprint you into the “real” photo.

The happy image.

The one where me and my mom, no longer your wife, are smiling.

I know it’s not real, but this is my memory.

See,

He left me

Like a sick, twisted Santa he packed up all those memories in a disheveled, shabby bag, slung them over his shoulders,

shoulders already weighted down by the weight of the world,

And he climbed up that chimney.

The rest of the story is somewhat incomplete

Because I know you went into the chimney

But I never saw you leave.

I was only told of the fire that nature had lit below you…

I saw the smoke come out of the top of the chimney

I saw the ashes at the bottom

But you never left any trace…

I think you were burned alive in that fire,

But even with the ash and smoke I saw,

I certainly never saw the bones…

And as hard as I fucking searched, I never found that bag.

I never, ever found that fucking bag-

And after numerous searches, after numerous screams at you, cries at you, quitting, and searching again, I decided to try something different-

That bag of mine you lost, I decided to make my own…

Some of them are good.

I remember when a squirrel came down that chimney and right into the living room

You and grandpa, and our cat, Bandit, chased that squirrel throughout the house

Throughout the living room

Throughout the attic

And then somehow he made it outside- I’m not exactly sure how

I have a snapshot of standing outside watching the squirrel

Zoom! by

And then Daddy

Zoom! by

And then grandpa

Zoom! Bringing up the rear.

All of you having a rat race, more of a squirrel race I guess, across the lawn.

But I’m not sure how the squirrel got into the attic.

And certainly don’t understand how it made it outside…

This must’ve been some squirrel if he could open doors…

And, come to think of it, how could I have watched them from inside chasing the squirrel in the attic and moments later be watching from a totally different angle outside the house.

I guess you could call it a “good memory,”

Even though I may have fudged the edges.

But some of them are not so pretty...

I have the memory of my Mom screaming and writhing in pain on the floor when we got the news.

The police told my grandma the complete story,

Because my Mom wasn’t on the phone, she knew everything before the police officer could finish his second sentence:

“Hello, is this Marina Lugovoy? I have some bad-“

After years of waiting,

Years of expecting,

Who knows maybe even years of kind of- preparing?

She knew what those words meant.

She knew that, this time, he had left for good.

I mean I wasn’t there,

I only know it as she recalls it

But that doesn’t make the memory of her shrieks of pain any less real.

And you know what the worst part is?

Every perfect memory, as all memories are, reminds us of the perfect flaw that was there to match.

You were the love of my mother’s life. And it’s why she struggles every day to find you again now.

You loved every moment you played with me. I was the therapy to the monsters in your head. I was the therapy until those monsters overwhelmed you and took you away.

You were the man every boy looks to be as a child. The father figure he one day hopes to become, so who does he want to be when that image disappears?

I don’t even have any images of you

No memory of us ever playing ball…

No memory of a funeral, no image of the casket going into the ground.

The most vivid image I have of “you,”

is my mom walking in the door saying that you were gone.

Maybe she said death, but that didn’t mean much to a four year old.

I remember age ten, when I think that concept did finally settle into my young

Unprepared brain,

Heaving and throwing up for half an hour, Mom patting my back not sure how to help my racing brain.

But that image of when she walked into the vestibule and of course she wept,

And I wept because she wept.

Until there was no weeping left.

But of course when I was four, I went to school, and every day either Mom or my grandparents would pick me up.

So I would never be home alone waiting for you.

So again- my only real memory of “you,” even that’s a sham.

At four

The things that make up your memories, you are too young to identify, certainly too young to articulate

And the things you can articulate, well they exist with edges trimmed to fit a reality that isn’t the same ten to twenty years later.

This means that the only images I have of you are the ones I’ve made up.

The false images of a mind struggling to smooth over a chaotic world, torn apart at the seams.

All I have are the shattered shards of a childhood super glued back together like some sort of 1st grade macaroni project to give the semblance of the foundation of a normal, innocent, proper childhood

It’s why I still leave out cookies for Santa.

It’s why I was furious the first time there was no basket from the Easter bunny.

It’s why even after growing up, I hide the Afikoman every year for the new young children to find.

It’s why I love leaving the Christmas Tree out until the needles begin to brown.

It’s why I love red light, green light, and hide and seek, and red rover, red rover

And teaching.

I do have one memory though.

Memory being used as loosely as it can be.

Before my brain was even developed

My eyes were even open

I remember.

I “remember”

When I got home from the hospital

I remember.

As if I were a spirit floating in third person perspective staring at the room from the opposite corner you were sitting in.

Me on your lap.

Barely the size of a football.

And you rocked me that whole night.

And maybe it didn’t happen

And if I did, I certainly wasn’t “there”

But I don’t have ANY memory of you

So that one-

I think I’ll hold on to.