The following is my proposed first chapter of my in-progress memoir.

Additional memoir chapters can be found on substack

All Gone – The Playful Child

It’s late spring 1986. Chernobyl has just blanketed a large part of Europe with radioactive material, causing many to question if nuclear power is worth the risk. Across the world, a woman and her three-year-old son are in their single-wide on the outside of a minor American city. It’s a warm sunny day. She is bustling around, doing the things many moms with small children in the 80’s did, you know, before their shift at the local 7-Eleven started later in the day. The boy, who is a playful and clever thing, is bounding around like a puppy off its leash. The warm glow flowing through the open windows has nothing to do with nuclear fallout – it’s a pleasant sort of warmth.

The television is pumping out some midday soap opera (likely Days of Our Lives) and the drama is in full swing. The boy is running up and down the hallway, blanket tossed over one shoulder: less superhero, and more renaissance debonairness smattered with playful ducks. At this point she has likely half-heartedly scolded him about the dangers of running in the house, but deep down she loves watching him do this: just imagine that little boy’s smile. The innocence of the age means that world cares, like domestic economic concerns and raging epidemics have no real impact: what do these things matter to the ultra-young? To be frank, nowadays what do they matter to a lot of people?

Somewhere around is the family’s cat. The boy named it “kitty” and it somehow stuck: the beautiful simplicity of a child’s brain. His best friend is a boy named Carey from the small church down the street. When he is home, he has an imaginary friend (also named Carey – see simplicity). Everything is seemingly good in their little world. Where they don’t have much materially and there is an underlying brain-tug called struggle, they are surrounded by support and something like love. See, their community is based upon mutual support. It’s easy to find a teen from another part of the park to help watch the boy, because everyone here needs the money. It’s a mini sub-utopia of which Thomas More would not approve. (Funny enough he was the rich son of a nobleman, who went on to prosecute and at least imprison (if not torture) those who dared not be Catholic. Makes a cursory reading of Utopia seem like Mein Kampf now, doesn’t it? Maybe try it in its original Latin.)

Anyway, theirs is a world separate from the grand estates far north of town, the surrounding farms, or even the small suburban homes just a mile or so away. Here is where people come who don’t really have many other options. This is the working poor, but the people smile a lot. For the boy, this trailer park is like a magical world full of wonder: like the pack of dogs who come through every day and jump and bark and play: with secret villains, that must be avoided, if not outright defeated, like the neighbor’s vase of peacock feathers that are super scary because they are always looking at him. It’s a world full to burst with opportunity for discovery.

Down the way a bit, the boy spends a lot of time with a funny teenage girl. She took an early liking to the boy and his ready smile. For reasons only known to her, she taught him a cheeky little saying: she taught him to throw his hands in the air and say: “all gone.” This led to a bit of a game between the boy and his mother. She would turn her back, likely doing some kind of household chore, and he would take off out the back door of the trailer. The sneaky little snot would then span the yard and jump a small drainage ditch, which his mom had told him countless times marked out of bounds. Out the door she would come, smile on her face and hands on her hips:

“You better get back over here. The bears are going to get you.”

Hands in the air: “all gone.”

“Well, the wolves are going to get you.”

Again, hands in the air: “all gone.”

“Well, your dad’s going to get you.”

At this he would laugh and haul ass back toward the trailer.

There is a lot to admire about this mom. She works hard. She perseveres. She prioritizes family. She is in every way the consummate caregiver and she loves fiercely. Is she any different from other moms who do the same? I think so: She is mine.