Tenderness

I’ve been waking up around 4:45 in the morning for the past few weeks. No alarm goes off except the one in my head, but you can set your watch by me. I’ll get up sometimes and watch a little TV hoping for a thigh master infomercial. Then, after 15 minutes, I go back to bed and try again.

First, little things surface. Things I need to do. Change the oil, spam, pay water bill…I keep a pad on the nightstand where I can remind myself.

Next, I see faces. My cousin Susan whose polio hasn’t kept her from dancing; my uncle David who would get down on the floor with us; my dad in his Air Force uniform with his foot on the fender of his Ford (three years before me); my mother with a mouthful of clothespins hanging out sheets on the line in the back yard; a small dog with patches of bald lying on a towel near the door; my sister having tea-parties in my mother’s petticoat and red heels; and my brother on the bed under mine turning pages of any book he can get his hands on.

I smell quilts in the cedar chest; my third-grade teacher; my grandmother’s breath (carnation milk); camphophenique; fresh-mowed grass; biscuits and bacon; and popcorn.

I hear my mother stirring her coffee; my dad whistling to wake us up; the tearing of an old white t-shirt for the rag bag; my little brother counting his money; and my grandfather praying.

It is not such a terrible thing being awakened at 4:45 to be reminded of a lifetime of tenderness.