I am blogging while the kids journal this summer. Each time, I will post 'journal starter' in the label. I think it's called a writing prompt. We try to avoid the W word, the boys don't seem to mind keeping a journal, though sitting down 'to write' seems to be an issue...
Anyway, on with the tale!
My earliest memory is at a funeral. I was 3 or maybe 4 years old and our neighbor Alice had died.
She was old, not as old as her husband, because she still had color in her hair. It was very red in my memory-but it could have been any color really. I remember details that may not be accurate-she had on several large rings, she was wearing a green suit jacket, she had on a pink shirt and pearls.
What I do remember is that my brother and I were left alone looking into the coffin while the adults talked. My father would have performed the funeral service, so it was likely before the rest of the congregation arrived.
We stared at her. He told me to touch her. I did not do it. He reached out and touched her cheek. I waited for the crumble of decay to show, but it just barely gave way under the pressure of his finger, like real skin, but more firm. I was just sure she was something like spun sugar, a mannequin maybe. That the real Alice was gone and they were burying this replica of her-the very opposite of a dead pet where you buried a box or bag with the animal in there-but were absolutely NOT supposed to look at it.
I reached out and touched her hand, her finger. It was silky and dry and I snatched my hand back in case anyone thought I was going for a ring. I had been told multiple times to leave things like that alone.
Nothing happened. We did not get caught, no one yelled at me, she did not fall out of her coffin and onto me or the floor. I remember this so well not because it was traumatizing to touch a dead person, but because it was the first time I have any clear memory of getting away with something that was probably very naughty. And Satan did not come poke me with a pitchfork and God did not strike me with lightening and I was very, very shocked that I was capable of doing something and NOT getting caught. Until then, I had apparently been less than sneaky-from then on, I pushed the boundaries.
