I Just Want

I remember the first time I watched Matilda with my Aunt. Lying in the middle of her bedroom floor surrounded by my younger aunts, brother, and pillows and blankets. The smell of all the dusty old books cluttered her two bookcases. The way the TV lightened the dark bedroom was just enough for me to notice how small the boxed TV was that sat on top of the tall wooden dresser.

For the first time, I watched myself on a tv screen. Minus the powers and crook father I smiled, laughed and pictured myself dancing with my mother. The idea of ribbons in my hair to match the uniform dresses I had to wear to school excited me.

I looked over to my aunt and basked in the fact that Matilda liked books as she and I did. She knew what she did by showing us the movie, I know she did. I wanted to be Matilda, have the powers to embarrass the bullies at school.

Matilda was the first thing I thought of when I woke up on January 21, 2022, when I found out my Aunt Mia had died. The beginning of Matilda’s life was unfair and hard but at least she never knew this level of unfairness. The moment you lose someone who means the world to you. Just like Matilda looked up to Bumblebee, I looked up to my aunt. My motivation. The one who read everything I wrote, made me feel normal when I had an overload of emotions about a book I couldn’t put down. My aunt, the woman whose fingers moved so fast when she signed. My eyes opened and wide with wonder watching her sign, forgetting about everything.

She’s gone. My reason for a lot of things is gone and I just want to press pause and rewind. Go back to that night in the room, relive the sleepover in her room and take in the moment a hundred more times. I want nothing more than to smile at the tv and laugh as Ms. Trench gets pelted with chalkboard erasers. Listen to the song that sticks in my head every time I make pancakes. I just want to get back the time.

I just want nothing more than to smile as Matilda does in the ending. Open a book, mark a spot, and know I can open my phone and text my aunt about the exciting part I just read. See her comment on my Facebook posts, know that she’s watching me even though she’s far away.

Matilda never grew old, never got to live through things because she stayed young, and the movie stopped. You know what they say about being young. I’m clutching the little hand of younger me and pulling her tight into my arms. I’m begging her not to run because I can feel her disappearing inside me.

She’s older and learned that life is unfair, it’s nothing like Matilda. It takes those who mean the most to you, teaches you to always expect the worse, and reminds you that books won’t save you. Life has me holding my own hand, wrapped tightly in bed, crying as I watch Matilda on repeat with only a memory. A memory that will fade in time.

This piece was written as a way to release what I was feeling. First it was worked on as a CNF piece for my Spring Semester but immediately turned into something more. It’s one of many things I’ve written for my aunt but I haven’t decided if I will post more than this.