Previously: He always sat on the same bench between two large trees, facing the clinic … He’d flick a cigarette lighter and watch the flame, let it go out and then flick it again … I will be the history maker. I will be the witness and the warrior… He watched me as I waited to be buzzed in, he saw me open my purse and check for something, he saw me look at my fingernails, he watched me go in the building.
Last Week:
Take it from the top:
fernweh (fern-way) n.
1. An ache for distant places
2. Being homesick for anywhere but home
Your body hurts right now but you can move it. Your knees can bend and you can push yourself out from under the tub. You can roll yourself away from the blood and vomit. It hurts to breathe but you can breathe.
It hurts but that means you’re alive.
He didn’t break your thumbs. Both thumbs work. My God, look at those thumbs! Six years from now, they will rub sunscreen onto your son’s nose. Life can turn around quickly.
You’ll use them to pick tomatoes from your garden and test their ripeness. They will help hold your coffee as you sit in the kitchen in the quiet mornings before your family wakes up.
You can use those thumbs to dial a phone and call for help. You live in this amazing world where you can call for help and people will come. Do you understand this? People will help you if you ask. But you have to ask. Use your thumbs to ask!
When your kids are born you want them to be healthy. Then you hope they are happy, or at least content. No, confident. Confident is the word. You want them to know that they belong in the world. Even when they get knocked down, you want them to learn that they can get back up. I pity the poor kids that never fail. Someday the world is going to slap them in the face and all they are going to be able to do is touch their cheek and stare with wide eyes and wonder how the world could be so mean to someone so special.
Now I know that I must have raised you with some of the right ingredients. I must have had some influence, because I can see that you are going to get up off that floor. You are going to get up off that goddamn floor.
I guess you’ve had some influence on me, too.
Thank you for reading. Next week will start like this:
Four years after the phone call with you aunt, we got a letter.