The black shiny casket sat above a strip of plastic grass. The man inside was wearing his favorite jeans and and a Who concert t-shirt. A little girl dressed in a pink tutu and a plastic tiara looked at the casket from the vantage of her mother's arms. She imagined the man inside to be sleeping, and remembered once crawling into his lap. He put his arm instinctively around her as he laughed with the other adults at a barbecue. She remembered the feel of his hand on her shoulder, and how warm he felt.
When the mother looked at the casket, she saw the man who held her banana-seat bike as she took her first ride without training wheels. She remembered crashing into gravel, scraping her knees and knocking out her front two teeth. She remembered him scooping her up, apologizing, searching for her teeth in the dirt, and buckling her into the back seat of the Chevy to drive to the hospital.
Next to the mother was an older woman with a smile on her face, and tears in her eyes. She remembered the man running naked, with boots on, singing "I Wanna Hold your Hand", before they both plunged into the lake at Big Bear. When they surfaced he said, "Let's get married!" And so they did.
Standing next to the older woman was an man of the same age, his face drawn and gray. When he looked at the casket he saw the man pulling him from the flaming car. He remembered the man's muscular arm dragging him back up from the ditch, gently placing him on the ground, then running to the road, jumping and screaming to flag down help.
Next to the man was a very elderly woman. When she looked at the casket she remembered the day she found out she was pregnant. She remembered crouching under the stairs as the bombs fell. She remembered the bricks that cut through her mother as their flat exploded. She remembered the electric feeling in her hand as she clutched her abdomen, hoping just to get through the next few seconds. She walked over the casket, and caressed it's surface with her gloved hand, and silently thanked her son for being the man he was.
---
Here's fan music video for the song
No comments:
Post a Comment