Goodbye Prelude To A Shower

At seven am, Remix To Ignition started to fill the silence covering my bedroom. Starting quietly, it grew and grew, like a weed with tentacles that reached out with a crescendo. I stirred, sleep fading from my eyes, dripping down to be absorbed again by my bed. I rolled onto my back and began to mouth along the lyrics, adding improvised hand motions to illustrate the words being sung (“Give me that toot toot, give me that beep beep” eliciting a train whistle and a honking horn).

When the song was over, I slid the “Off” button and climbed out of bed. I had more packing to do, but first, a shower. Mom and dad’s shower is nice and big and roomy compared to mine – both mine in the house and mine in my apartment – so obviously I wanted to use theirs for my Last Shower. I grabbed my towel and padded down the hallway in ripped plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt that advertised my milkshake as bringing all the boys to the yard. I crossed the familiar threshold into my parents’ room, the room I’d crept into countless times in the middle of the night as a child. This morning I felt like a child again, missing my parents already.

“Ca’I use your shower or do you need it?”

My mom looked at me, makeup done, wearing a black suit skirt under a pajama top, her hair still damp. Dad sat in bed with a cup of coffee and the Journal. Mom’s eyes had the glass and the sad, proud, conflicted smile that only a parent can wear. She stepped forward and hugged me to her, both of us trying not to cry. “I’ve loved having you here. I’m gonna miss having you around.” Her arms stayed around me, no intention of letting go. “You’ve really taken your place in this family, and I hope you hold onto it. We’re gonna make sure you do.” I’ve thought about that many times, wishing hard that the three of us hold on to the closeness we’ve found and being nervous that we’ll lose it. “I love you so much and I’m so proud of you.” The mom look of love threatened to pull tears from my eyes when she stepped back and held me by the shoulders. She went on about how proud she is of me and how much she loves me and all of the other things I try to hold on to and remember so that one day I can treasure them when she’s gone. Even writing about it makes me sad.

Her hair was still damp as she instructed me to call her every day. One more kiss and I turned around the way I’d come to wash up in a shower the size of my whole bathroom.