Animal Crackers
I loved going to the grocery store at a particular time in my childhood after my brother William was born and before Christopher, my other brother, joined the family.
I could sit in the little seat at the front of the grocery cart made especially for small passengers big enough to hold their own. It was also convenient proximity to my mother. I could grab her attention and ask all the questions I wanted. The height was an absolute pleasure as well; my perspective for the hour mirrored that of someone much taller and older than I was. Precocious and perched, I could observe and comment on all things far too lofty for the other twenty-three hours in a five-year-old’s day.
One night, my mom needed something from the store, and I was delighted to be her company for the errand. The resistance from the humidity outside meeting the frosty-conditioned air of the store inside felt like we were crossing worlds; we jumped from the aisles of the parking lot into a comprehensive portal of groceries and goods.
My mom placed her hands on either side of my little folded arms resting on the bar to push us forward. I looked down and quickly took inventory of my clothing as if I already knew that I would remember this evening for my entire life. Red shirt, yellow shorts with the white trim, and red thong flip-flops I recently received and loved. If peace is joy at rest, joy is peace on its feet, and mine were swinging back and forth — back and forth — back and forth, zipping and zapping to make all the red shades possible against the reflection of the highly polished floors at the Kash N’ Karry.
We had just entered the store near all of the potted plants, flowers, and oddly enough, baked goods. It was a bouquet of oven-warmed rolls and earth lining up to deliver a feeling I still cannot explain. The best I can do nearly thirty-eight years later is to say the camera angle in my mind’s eye took a sharp fade to the upper left. Nothing specific caught my attention, but I could not remove my gaze from this invisible energy on the ceiling. Flooded with complete dread, it was as if I had existed centuries before and suddenly remembered the pain this world could bring. My small stomach full of the meal we ate before arriving sat askew. I was scared and, for the first time in a while, unable to communicate. My mom noticed the quiet. She asked what was wrong, and of course, she was curious to know the origin of my fixation.
Was it the piping, the steel supports, the corners filled with the slowly sagging balloons that had escaped the errant fingers of a hand or two?
Provoking the answer was something I had hoped that she could do.
The fluorescent lights were hurting my eyes, so I closed them. Whatever had me wouldn’t let me go, so the best that I could do was echo the whispers of an overheard adult conversation.
“There’s something wrong with my heart.”
My mom seemed confused, and I could feel myself becoming irritated with the lack of her agreement.
I explained to her that I would die sooner than later because my heart wasn’t properly put together. A combination of the small education in anatomy provided by Sesame Street and the Catholic Church’s teachings during Easter tied my conclusion up neatly. If your heart breaks, it will not work. If it does not work, you will die. Dying is traumatic, terrifying, and something to avoid at all costs.
The evening before, my parents were up discussing things while I was supposed to be asleep. I could “hear the grass grow,” my grandmother said, and she was right. I also wanted to hear it grow; I wanted to know who my parents were beyond directions, rules, and responsibilities. I always had a feeling I was missing something important, something I should be aware of that my family didn’t trust me to protect. Overhearing that I was born with a hole in my heart seemed like just the thing to fit this category.
Interestingly enough, the embryonic heart begins as a single primitive atrium. It divides into the left and right septum by a persevering tissue called the septum primum. When this fails to fuse with the endocardial cushion, a defect occurs and leaves a gap or a hole. The heart heals up quickly in many congenital presentations. I was confident that I was the exception.
Mom did her best to convince me I was not dying and that the hole in my heart had closed. Her certainty was of no comfort because it was empirical; peace for me would require much more than words. I knew that doctors had cameras that took pictures inside. “X” was for x-ray, and I needed one, stat.
We wheeled into the cracker aisle. Bending down below my view, my mother grabbed something that she was proud of and hopped up victoriously before me.
The smile she wore was to draw me back to a curiosity she could manage. Arm extended, she dangled from her index finger a box of animal crackers. Then came the news that I could open and eat the treat BEFORE WE EVEN PAID.
My eyes widened at this breach of all common decency and ethics.
We never opened food before we paid for it, but we had never discussed my impending death either.
A night of firsts for us both, it had seemed.
The magic of the crackers wore off, but the feeling of doom, dread, and defect remained. The feeling that led me to stare into “the nothing” at the grocery store filled me with “the something” I wouldn’t drop.
The pleading for help was alarming enough that my parents took me to the emergency room one night. It was disturbing for a child so young to have consistent concern for their heart; a child so young with no faith in her parents or her God.
I was only in Kindergarten, but I knew about Jesus’s disciple “doubting Thomas.” Drawing parallels with parables was standard in our faith, and I heard the gospel ringing in my ears as I worked out the concerns in my head.
“Jesus said unto him, Thomas because you have seen me, you have believed, blessed are those who have not seen and yet they believe.”
I wondered why Thomas was wrong here. His request seemed utterly reasonable. The man had just died days before and now stood before his friends expecting them to understand. Please show me the scars, Jesus, show me the holes in your hands and then do me a favor and show me the lack of them in my chest, I thought.
The doctors at All Children’s showed me my x-ray. Off-center in the upper middle of the image was what they said was my heart. They let me get up close and inspect the blurry blob for holes. I saw nothing suspicious and decided we could leave.
As we packed things up to go home, I asked the doctor if I could keep my films. He smiled and said they would put them in a folder and I could bring them home. The x-rays weren’t direct evidence, but it would do for now.
The indescribable feeling that night at the grocery store is still evocative years later.
It waxes and wanes and gets drowned out by louder circumstances.
As we left the emergency room, I held my dad’s hand on the left and my heart’s films on the right.
My mom pulled something out of her bag and dangled it from her index finger. She offered the animal crackers in exchange for the x-rays.
I was allowed to eat them IN THE CAR on the drive home.
Originally published at https://substitution.substack.com.
