A Flower for Mawmaw
Sometimes, we don’t give our younger selves enough credit.
Pink? No, maybe some more purple. I balled up a fist around the little piece of wax that had “Violet-blue” written on its paper wrapping and carefully drew some more loops on my artwork. Now I just needed a little more yellow in the middle and… perfect.
I put down my last crayon and held up the drawing for final approval. Purple and blue petals filled up the whole sheet of paper and there was a bright yellow and gold swirl right in the middle where bumblebees would land. Next to me, I heard the tap of Leanne’s crayon on the wood chair and she held up her drawing next to mine.
“See?” she said, “It’s a rose!” She had drawn a red flower at the top of the page with a green, thorny stem going down to the bottom.
“Pretty,” I replied. “But mine’s better.”
“No it’s not!”
“Yeah it is. Purple’s always better than red.”
Leanne stuck out her tongue at me and I stuck mine out right back at her.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s put them with the others.”
We both stood up from the floor and carried our drawings to the table set up against the closest wall. Leanne put her rose on the table between a basket of tulips and a bouquet of other mixed flowers, and I put my drawing on the other side of the bouquet. There was a little slip of paper tied to the bouquet with my name, so I said, “Hey look, Leanne!” and pointed at the note.
She picked it up and read out-loud, “To Jim, Barb, Leanne, and Annie: In loving memory of your mother and grandmother. Donna Clark.” When she finished reading, Leanne looked at me and asked if I remembered Donna.
“Well, duhhh,” I answered. “She goes over to Mawmaw’s house every Sunday for cards!”
“She used to go over to Mawmaw’s house for cards,” Leanne corrected me.
It felt like she’d punched me, even though she was still on the other side of the flowers from me. My eyebrows pushed together and I felt a little line go in between them. Instead of saying anything, I walked back to the chair I’d used as my coloring table and sat down. She didn’t have to say that.
After watching my own legs swinging back and forth for a few seconds, I saw my sister’s feet swinging under the chair next to mine. We were both quiet for a minute, and then Leanne said, “She really liked card games.”
I nodded my head slightly and agreed. “Mhm.”
Our feet kept moving forward and backward, about as fast as the gold circle hanging from the clock on the wall.
One of my favorite games to play with Mawmaw was Go Fish. She taught me how to play last year, right after I turned five.
“It’s sad, you know?” Leanne said it, but she didn’t sound too sad. Her voice still sounded clear and normal. “That she’s dead, I mean.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Annie!” Leanne’s legs stopped kicking and I heard her spin in her chair to face me.
“What?” I looked back at her now and crossed my arms over my chest. My forehead was starting to hurt because my eyebrows were still making that line. I rubbed it, then crossed my arms again.
“What do you mean, you guess?” Her voice was loud and she had her hand in the air like she wanted to slap my cheek. “She’s dead! You’re supposed to cry at funerals. That’s why they have so many tissue boxes all over the place.” This time, Leanne’s voice wobbled a little bit when she got to the end of her sentence.
At the mention of tissue boxes, I pulled out the tissue that Aunt Sue had given me earlier, before I’d drawn my flower. “Here you go, love,” she’d said to me. “You’ll need this later.” I didn’t really understand what she meant. Didn’t Mommy tell her that I’d gotten over my cold last week? When she stood up straight and walked away, I heard her say to Uncle Tom, “Tragic situation. I hate to see the little ones around all this.”
Sitting next to Leanne, I held the edge of the tissue with both hands and pulled slowly into two.
“So aren’t you gonna cry?” she asked me. I knew she that if she didn’t see teardrops on my cheeks soon, then she would really get mad.
“I dunno…” The tissue was in two pieces on my lap now, so I took one of the halves and ripped it in the other direction.
“Well I’m going to.” She hopped down from her chair and stepped right in front of me so she could look straight at my face.
“But Mommy told me last night that Mawmaw’s in Heaven.” I held all the tissue pieces in my hands and looked at my sister. “She’s happy now.”
“Well yeah, but… but that doesn’t matter. It’s still… a tragic situation.” I knew she was just copying what Aunt Sue said earlier.
I didn’t understand Leanne and Aunt Sue. Mommy told me last night that this was a happy situation, not a… tragic one. Tragic. I wasn’t sure what that word meant, but I definitely knew that it wasn’t happy. But Mawmaw was out of her pain now — Mommy told me so.
“I don’t want Mawmaw to hurt,” I told Leanne.
Leanne sucked in a bunch of air real fast. “I don’t either!” Her knuckles were up against her sides now.
“But if she was still alive, then she would hurt!”
“Ugh, you just don’t get it. You’re too young.” She turned and walked next to the wall with the clock so she could stand with a group of grown ups. Somehow, she looked shorter than usual. Soon after joining them, Leanne pulled a tissue out of her pocket and held it up to her nose, like Uncle Billy next to her.
Now I was by myself, so I pushed myself out of the chair and walked to the back of the room. Against that wall was the box holding Mawmaw. Three grown ups I didn’t know whispered to each other at one end of the smooth casket — that’s what Mommy called it — but I walked to the other end, where the top was up. I looked inside and was happy to see Mawmaw lying down so still.
It was nice, but strange, because I could only remember her shaking and coughing, even when she fell asleep during movies. I hated the coughs. They always made me hurt inside.
I smiled at Mawmaw’s face and I knew that the calm smile on her lips was meant for me.
“I’m happy you feel better,” I told her. “I love you.”
When I leaned forward to kiss her cheek, I could hear her voice tingle through my whole body, saying, “I love you too, my Annie.”
