“What was Papa Gary’s favorite color?” asks my 7-year-old daughter, Penelope, who’s madly doodling at the dining-room table. She is deciding how to decorate a photo of my father, Gary, for her second-grade celebration of Dia de los Muertos, which honors family and friends who have passed away. The photo is a close-up of him — 1970s mustache and sideburns — holding me as an infant. Both of us are laughing, as if part of an inside joke.
I knew firsthand how anxiety could beat down a child and,
by proxy, a mother, especially one whose own anxiety might
have caused the spiral in the first place.
Suddenly it was as if I’d seen something I shouldn’t have — like walking in on a friend making out with my husband. Only it was my child sucking on my friend’s 58-year-old, non-milk-producing boob.
The guy at Mail Boxes, Etc. had owned the place for 10 years and was a very angry individual. You would walk in the door, the little bell would ring and he would roll his eyes and emit a thunderous “Ugh.”