Previously: You talked to my sister, your aunt Stephanie once, on the phone, when you were a baby … you remember she’d run away as a teenager … She liked Santa Fe when they got there and she never left … I hope you come visit … The number was disconnected.
Last Week:
Take it from the top:
fernweh (fern-way) n.
1. An ache for distant places
2. Being homesick for anywhere but home
One of my favorite scenes from your life is the first time you smoked pot, out on the prairie, under the stars. Maybe it makes me a terrible mother, but I’m happy it happens. I’m there with you, every time, watching, trying to breath it in, failing, but delighting in the fact that you were acting like a normal teenager, in spite of everything. I was glad you were outside, with your friend, making positive memories of home. I didn’t want you to feel only anger and sadness. Anger and sadness, yes, of course, but not only that. Maybe a joint is the best way to handle it. I worry about your anger. It was anger that took me away from you.
Your grandparents would pick you up in the morning and take you to church with them. You liked going to church, even though there weren’t many kids there. No, check that, you liked going to church because there weren’t many kids there. You’ve always had this old soul quality to you. When you stopped playing baseball you said, without a hint of irony, and because you spent too many hours listening to old ball players call games on the radio and television, The game has passed me by. You were sixteen. You’d also sit on out porch with your feet on the railing and a piece of straw between your teeth. I’ve often wondered why a person is born when they are born. Why this person, at this place, at this time? I know you’ve been trying to figure that out for yourself, and I’ve watched you struggle to feel comfortable. I wonder if you’ve ever really felt at home. I used to think that was about place; that you didn’t belong in Oklahoma. But now I wonder if it’s not about time. You were born for a different time. I’m sorry, sweet. That’s a much harder problem to solve.
You felt at home in church, I know that. You liked the old songs and the prayers, especially the prayers that were prayed every week. The more repetitive, the more you liked it. You liked communion most of all. From a young age you latched onto those words. I didn’t like it at first; at least it worried me, as burned by the church as I’d been, but how could I not smile when you’d feed the horses and say, This is the horse feed, given for you. Eat it and remember me.
Thank you for reading. Next week will start like this:
When Jeremiah Barger was able to borrow his mother’s car, he would drive into town to sit in the park across the street from the clinic.