Star Light, Star Bright

In my earliest memories I see

Displayed prominently in our mid 1970s kitchen

A black and white picture of Baby Me

Being held by a man with pale skin and big, kind eyes

He looks very happy

>

"Mom, who's that?"

"That's your Uncle Frank, holding you when you were a baby."

I knew several uncles. Uncle Bob, Uncle Donald, Uncle Felix

I knew no "Uncle Frank"

Yet there he was

>

"Where is he? Can he come over?"

"No, not anymore. He died when you were a baby, not long after you were in that picture"

"I don't remember him."

"No, you were too little."

"Did he used to come over?"

"Yes, right here."

"Was he nice?"

"Yes, we loved him very much. We would talk and laugh."

>

That was the my first taste of death

>

As it turned out, Frank was my great-uncle

My grandfather's half-brother

>

My child brain thought and processed

Concluding

Being dead means

You were here

Now you're not here

And you can never come back

>

Death hit harder the second time

>

I woke up one morning and

Just like every other day

Looked under my bed for my dog

She was there every morning

>

But not that morning

>

I woke up my parents

Looking for my dog

My mom looked sad

"She died last night

She was hit by a car."

>

I didn't want to believe them

Adults played tricks on kids all the time

Adults lied like it was nothing

But punished lying children

Yelling at them and sending them to the corner

Taking away the TV

>

I looked all over

My parents never got out of bed

I came back to their room

They still looked sad

My dog was gone

>

My mind couldn't process it

I cried for months, every day

So much my mom talked to my doctor about it

>

Uncle Frank, now my dog

I didn't remember Frank

But I loved my dog

I never said goodbye to either

Never saw their bodies

I knew from TV there were bodies

Cemeteries

Funerals

Where was my dog?

>

Being dead, my brain said

Meant you disappeared

Here before

Now gone

Never coming back

>

The horror!

>

"Mom," I cried

"I don't want to die."

I didn't want to disappear

"You won't, sweetheart

You're fine. You're not going to die."

>

Years later

Now in home #2

Wisconsin

Winter

Snow everywhere

My favorite season

>

The neighbor kid across the street

Jeff Hoffman

Went on a ski vacation with his folks

Over Christmas break

Colorado, I think

>

They came back

Jeff didn't

>

He died of Reye's Syndrome

The disease that sometimes killed kids

Who took aspirin

It's why Tylenol became popular

>

They hadn't found the link yet

So kids, including me

Were given baby aspirin all the time

Chewable little pills

Orange flavor

Than goodness for St. Joseph

Was the jingle

>

Jeff caught a cold with fever

Took aspirin

Died in agony

There was nothing doctors could do

>

His last were

"Mom, I don't want to die"

Just before he did

>

His parents came home

I never saw them again

Thouh I had seen them regularly around the neighborhood

When Jeff was alive

>

They moved after that

Left their ghost-filled home

I don't blame them

I did the same

When it happened to me

>

Jeff wasn't my friend

But he was friendly

A few years older than me

He was the only kid who

Didn't pick on me at the school bus stop

>

Not all of them picked

Some just laughed

He didn't pick or laugh

He was nice to me, always

He may have even defended me

I don't remember

I was too busy crying

Or being afraid

>

I knew I was too little

To be his friend

He was too old

Too cool

>

But I thought one day

When I was older

Old like he was

He might have been in 4th grade!

I could maybe be cool enough

To talk to him

>

I went out every day to play in the snow

Mom would have to tell me to come in

Fur lunch

For dinner

I just wanted to be out there

Enjoying the snow

Before it melted

And the yard would be full of mosquitoes

The grass ful of ants

And dog shit

The neighborhood full of kids

Who saw me as a target

I enjoyed the peace and the cold

You could eat snow

Build with it

>

Often, I just laid there in the backyard

With my snowmobile suite keeping me warm and dry

Resting in my snow fort

With the lights coming on around the block

Watching the stars come out

>

One evening, I did that

Facing Jeff's house

Wondering about him

How he died

Where was Colorado?

Why go there if you could die?

Did other kids die there?

He liked skiing

Would he have died if he had skied here?

>He was nice to me

And I mourned the friend I never got to have

"Mom I don't want to die"

.

And like the others he disappeared

No body for me to see

>

I looked up at the stars as they appeared

In the blue-purple-black sky

And wished in vain

>

Star light

Star bright

First star I see tonight

Wish I may

Wish I might

Have this wish I wish tonight

>

Please don't let me die

>

I knew it probably wouldn't come true

My wishes never did

I always had to go to school

The fucking place never burned down

However much I wished and prayed

But this time I really hoped

I wouldn't wink out

Like a star in the morning

And disappear