I slapped mosquitoes, one after another.
“I’m Buddhist,” you said. “I don’t believe in killing things. But at times like this I’m glad have someone around who doesn’t have that problem.”
I was embarrassed for years after the fact about the mad crush I’d had on you. These days, I consider you the first [...]
A neighbour rang to say your dog was barking outside his house.
“My dog’s not barking,” you said.
“Well, yes it is!” he insisted. “It’s right here yapping. I can see it.”
You beckoned to your dog. Held her by the phone. Gave her a little squeeze until she let out a bark.
“Funny how [...]
I’d never before had a teacher who played favourites so blatantly. You were also the first who showed me a grudge held against the elder siblings you’d taught years earlier (and of course against my strong-willed mother). I told the tubists and drummers I didn’t know why you, the director, were picking on [...]
A difficult baby, a difficult child, now a difficult teenager. Your alphabet soup of diagnoses didn’t help for years. But when your little cousin hugs you during the worst storms of your misfiring brain, you stop to reassure him. I can see your struggle, holding in those too-large feelings however briefly, and I laud you [...]
One of the most erudite persons I’ve ever known, you asked at my admissions interview why poetry was. What was its purpose? What made it valuable, and distinct from prose? It had never made sense to you.
A family emergency kept you from attending my senior thesis lecture on that topic. We [...]
“I’ll stop and you’ll have to go around with your hair half-done if you don’t stop looking at my room!” you warned, if my glance strayed from the mirror on your dresser.
When the brush pulled my hair: “Stop crying. That didn’t hurt! What, are you tender-headed?”
Some people have the oddest ways of showing affection.
I [...]
Your person bore the same false glamour as your name, which sounds like a glorious flower but is really a stout tree bearing leathery blossoms. When my brother came to help me move, you joined him in a diaphanous dress adorned with glittery scarves. You cooed over my decor and pranced over the [...]
When you were a student teacher, rumors abounded: that you were gay. That your first name was Harry. That you eaten pizza with another man, alone, sitting beside him in the booth.
Your real enemy was your inexperience. Your first name was Alan. I studiously ignored the rumours, having been subject to [...]
You were an imposing, disciplinarian figure for your four children; they were all surprised when you enjoyed bantering with your young daughter-in-law, my mother. She quoted Shakespeare to you. You quoted it right back to her with a grin. Until then, no one else knew you’d read anything but your bible.
I [...]
I stepped through the looking glass and there you were: forgiving the unfamiliar slang of a foreigner and willingly showing me around. We shared an old-fashioned two-student desk, with holes for inkwells though we lives in the age of ballpoint pens. All these years later, I wish I could find you again.
I am a [...]