Where is Body G?

A few years ago, I published a memoir called Body G. But I took it off of the shelves because I realized that this story wasn’t truly finished. So I continue to write it, knowing that there is so much more to this story than I ever thought there’d be.

So, where is Body G now?

May 6, 2011.

Hundreds gather to remember––

Bodies filled the sanctuary of my childhood church.

I had slipped on the black dress I shopped for with my aunt, who I called Sugmo, and my cousin Nicole. She was eleven, the same age as my twin brothers, two years younger than me.

The dress fit to my waist, then curved like a bell down to mid-thigh. My mother insisted that I have my long, black hair permed straight that morning, so it flowed like silk. It was also my first time wearing makeup. My mother taught me how to put on mascara, as if, in the midst of this grief, I had simultaneously become a woman. As if I was being prepared to face the cruelness of the world now that I had experienced the worst thing that could happen. Well, if this was what womanhood held for me––constant heartbreak––then I wanted nothing to do with it.

I wrote a poem about it all, and Pastor Chris thought it would be a good idea if I read it to the hundreds of people at the memorial, if I wanted. I was okay. I mean, I went to school only a day after I found out, but mostly because I had to get out of that house full of sadness. I needed space and time. I thought I’d get it at school. Instead, I got a crowd of middle school kids swarming around me, asking if I was okay. I’d only spoken to most of those people maybe once in my life. Why do they care so much now? Who are these people? Get away from me. I’m fine.

A lot of them were there at the memorial.

Since I couldn’t escape at school, writing became my only real escape. Like it always had been. Like it always will be.

I sat in the front row of the church, next to Nicole. We couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop crying as we watched the slideshow. I didn’t know that tears could be so hot as they poured, fresh from your eyes, burning your cheeks. The pamphlet in my hand dampened. I breathed, but I couldn’t. Even when the slideshow ended. Especially then.

“And now, Alena will be reading a poem,” Pastor Chris said, motioning me to the podium.

The hundreds of faces in the crowd blurred together as I wiped my face of tears and stepped onto the stage. I stood in the center, the pamphlet still in my hand. The front cover has pink, yellow, and orange blossoms on a tree, behind a professional picture that I didn’t want to look at. I was in the picture. The picture was from last year. I wore a dark, purple tank top and still had my awkward blue braces on. Uhg. I hate that picture. I never even wanted to take professional photos until after my braces were off, but Mom insisted.

But I’m not the dead one in that photo.

And I guess it didn’t really matter anymore.

White light glowed on me, waiting for me. I was the oldest, so I had to speak for all six of us. I turned to the back of the pamphlet, where the blossom tree was printed again, and on top, my poem. My hands shook and eyes clouded with potential rain, but I breathed, air flowing in and clearing out, then leaned into the microphone.

Winter 2003.

Click. The jingle of keys followed by the turn of the lock announced Dad’s arrival. My younger siblings slept, but I was a big girl and perfectly able to stay awake past nine o’clock.

“Daddy!”

I jumped up from the floor, instantly awake, and dismissed The Little Mermaid playing on the TV. Mom followed slowly behind. Dad stood by the door and bent down with open arms, ready to catch me when I bounced forward. He lifted me in the air, making me five feet taller. Despite the nipping cold lingering in the air, Dad was always warm like milky coffee, which matched the color of the skin he passed onto me; his strength and warmth kept the house standing tall. Until he broke.

            “Daddy Daddy! Do I look pretty?” I asked, pointing to my black and white checkered dress. I had refused to take it off until Dad came home and saw it.

Mom laughed, her cheeks young and bright. Dad’s eyes narrowed like I was asking a silly question. “Of course, baby! You always look pretty,” he chuckled, then kissed my cheek and slid me down to the ground. I gleamed, secretly happy to feel like Dad’s favorite; in these moments, I felt safe.

That winter, a whole six inches of twinkling snow blanketed the front lawn. At five years old, I was aware of the miracle that lay before me. When you’re a kid and start to go to school, you begin to discover the beauty of life. I reached my peak of ignorance at five, when my heart remained whole. Even when the coldest winter to ever meet my body chilled me, my beaming smile and Dad’s presence drummed up enough warmth for me to survive.

My eyes grew wide at the sight of Dad rolling a giant snowball across the lawn. I hopped over, the snow about halfway up my short legs with each step.

“WHOA!” I exclaimed, then pushed the giant snowball beside him. Dad seemed to be happy about that. Eventually, I ran inside to grab a carrot, then searched all around the lawn for rocks so we could build the plain snowballs into a snowman.

As I reached to put on the last coal on the towering snowman, Dad said, “Now he’s a happy fellow.”

Dad, you were happy, too. Mom made steaming hot chocolate with marshmallows. And every winter, I still taste the warm chocolate melting on my tongue with the fluffy cloud of marshmallows. I still see the front lawn of that home covered in wonderland––I still see you smiling.

I want to smile too.

Winter 2006. 

There was a brief period of time that we moved out of the house on 13th circle and moved into what I called the Castle House. It was light brown on the outside with dark brown lining, and inside, grand and rich with the high ceiling, sparkling chandelier above the front room with the brown piano I played, and the staircase lined with smooth wood railing.

When I was in that house, I decided I was old enough for a pet. I told my mom I wanted a pet for Christmas. Like a hamster or guinea pig, specifically. She was still wearing her work clothes: black pants suit and a button-up white top because she’d just gotten home not twenty minutes ago. I thought this was a great time to ask because she would be thinking about work still, distracted just enough to say “yes” as an automatic response.

“What? No, Alena. Would you be able to take care of it?” she said as she shuffled some papers into her black purse. Dang. This was going to be a little harder than I thought.

“I would though! Please please pleaseeee!” I begged with my hands folded. “I’m eight now! I can do it!” She sighed, looking at my puppy-dog eyes. She caved. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

I smiled and jumped. I couldn’t wait to tell all my friends at school I might get a pet for Christmas finally. The other kids were in the living room, not paying attention. Until I screamed: “GUYS I’M GETTING A PET!” And they all bombarded me with questions.

A few days before Christmas, Mom called me to the foyer. “Alena! I have something for you!” 

I leaped down the carpeted stairs from my room and into the family room next to the front door. On the coffee table, there was a rectangular, purple cage. My eyes widened.

A black guinea pig squeaked around in the cage.

“Oh my gosh! Thank you thank you thank you!” I threw myself onto my mom and squeezed her stomach. “I love it!”

She laughed and smiled. “It’s your early Christmas present. It’s a girl, and she’s pregnant. I adopted her from a shelter.”

My smile stretched so wide it burned my cheeks. And when the other kids heard the commotion, they ran downstairs and goggled at the guinea pig with me.

“What’s her name?” Mom asked.

I smiled. The guinea pig had a full coat of black. I don’t know why, but it made me think of black licorice. “Liquorice,” I said.

I miss those days. The days when Mom was just the Mom I always knew––present, loving, a figure of safe authority that I could trust. One that would’ve done anything to make me happy, even if it meant she had to deal with a rodent in a household of five other children and a husband.

But death changes people. And death is a black night that you cannot reverse.

Saturday, September 11th, 2021. 

We sat in a circle, around a brick fire pit, listening to my friends go on about how none of us would survive in the real wilderness if we ever went camping. I did not listen to the details because I knew the conversation would eventually turn into a circular argument—it would have no end until we settled the matter with a bet. 

But with the warmth of the fire kissing my cheeks, and the laughter straining my lungs, I didn’t feel as sad as I had before. My grandmother had just died earlier that morning, but I wouldn’t be in California until next Wednesday. I texted my college friend Treovr earlier that day, and he told me to drive over. He knew me well enough to know I’d try to withdraw in my room and wallow in my grief, so he didn’t so much tell me but ordered me to come over. 

He was right. Being able to laugh put a band-aid on my grief. This group was the closest thing I had to a family in Portland. 

My grandmother was in California. Though I knew my grandmother would die from the stage four lung cancer, it did not stop the memories from resurfacing. The memories of my first loss all those years ago, and the ghost of that pain ached in my chest.

“You good Willy?” Trevor asked. 

“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” I took another sip of some carbonated water that was supposed to be strawberry-flavored, but was more comparable to liquid rocks. As the bubbles popped down my throat, my stomach churned at the thought of my grandmother’s lungs, tarred from the years of scarring cigarette smoke. 

Or my siblings’ lungs, suffocated from smoke inhalation, and their bodies––crumpled into ashes. Just over a decade ago. 

Death’s flames had come to take someone else in my life once again. Who will it take ten years from now? I stood up from the squeaky lawn chair and walked back inside for another drink, the band-aid peeling off from my salty tears. 

September 20th, 2021

Once the first raindrop falls, more raindrops follow, until they all pour into the earth, and you do not know when it will stop. It is the same with tears. When my uncle gave his eulogy for my grandmother, tears glistened from his eyes, one by one, until they streamed like a river down his cheeks and his voice shook the walls of the church—I had never seen my uncle cry like that. 

His grief was so great that it slammed against me, causing a storm to burst from my grieving heart. I sat on the front bench, my arms clenching my stomach as pain seared down my lungs with every sob. My mother, next to me, fell to her knees, wailing. 

I had heard this sound only one other time in my life. 

Vancouver, Washington. April 24, 2011. Easter Sunday. 3am.

Screaming in the black hole. But not my screams.  

Wails, like someone’s skin being scraped to their bones. If you ever wondered what bloody screams sound like––well, you don’t want to know, because they make your ears bleed. That’s why they call them “bloody screams.”

At first, they were muffled in darkness. I was drowning in a deep, ocean cloud of sleep. I scrambled to the surface––I couldn’t reach it fast enough. The tides whipped me, slashed me.

The screams intensified.

Ahhhhhhh. . . WHHHhhhhhhhyyy. . . AHHHhhhh . .

My fingers just barely reached the air above. My lungs begged for release, my head inflated, wanting to burst from my skull.

AHHHHHHHHHHH!

A hand gripped my arm and heaved me out of the water.

I gasped for air as my eyes flung open to the darkness.

“AHHHHHHHHHH MMMMMYYYYY BBAAAABBIEEEES”

The walls pounded with screeching wails while I lay in my bed, half asleep. Was I dreaming? Was I sucked into some sort of nightmarish Hell? I figured just as much and rolled over in my bed.

But the agonized cries continued. A calloused hand and aged voice summoned my mind away from restlessness.

“Alena.”

“Hmm?” Any semi-dream I had instantly slipped away from my memory once my eyes opened. “Whaauh?” I slurred. “Whaauz haapenen?”

My grandpa sat on my bed, his wrinkled blue eyes staring at me, grief aging him by the second.

“There was a fire at the house,” he choked out.

I shot up from my slumber.

“What?”

Am I still dreaming? What’s Grandpa doing in my room? In the middle of the night? Damn, what time is it?

From my bedroom door, a single beam of light peered into the room, but no morning shine seeped through my blinds––night.

 “Whadre ya doin’ here?” I muttered.

“There was––a––a fire. Your father and brother were in a fire, Hun.” The effort it took him to flow out a proper sentence made my heart pound. I gripped my blankets. My childhood home was gone. If it was just the house, what happened to my family? 

“What? Are they okay? What happened?” They’re okay. They’re okay. It’s just the house. Your siblings are hurt, maybe. But they’re not—

Grandpa shook his head. “There weren’t any survivors,” he whispered, his voice cracking, like bones breaking.

Crack.

When someone tells you that the future you imagined is now gone, you go a little crazy. You might cry uncontrollably. You might forget how to breathe and your lungs beg your brain to remember. You might yell and not know why. You might throw stuff against the walls, just to feel like you have some sort of power in this world. But for me—for me—

My stomach turned to stone.

My heart crashed into the stone.

My brain scrambled to process the words that had come from his mouth and create some sort of explanation that would falsify his claim. Was this some sort of sick joke?

“No,” was my first reaction. “No no no no no no.”

But I knew, because I saw it. I remembered it was Easter, and in my head, for some reason, my mind saw Jesus Christ rising up from the dead, carrying my little brothers and sister in his arms, up in the clouds. He’s taking them away from me, no no no no no!

Women wailed outside my room––real.

I jumped out of bed and followed the sound to the kitchen. My eyes stung at the glare of the bright kitchen lights, which seemed eerily unnatural against the black paint of night. Nothing about this seemed natural. 

“NOO MALIFE I MAKIDSSS AHaa NOO AHHhh NOoooo. . .” Grandma buried her face in her wrinkled hands as she sobbed in the wooden chair of the dining room table. The bags under her eyes weighed down her cheeks.

Mom collapsed from her chair and onto the floor, clutching her chest and screaming out, as if someone had stabbed her. Her glasses fell lopsided on her nose, but she didn’t even try to adjust them. As if nothing really mattered anymore. As if she didn’t want to see the world anymore.

“MYYYY BAAHHHHHBBIEEESS” repeated over and over so the words melded into each other. The vibrations shook the house and pierced through my chest, pulling me down to my knees. My stomach twisted around my organs and tears poured out like rain, suffocating me.

I didn’t scream.

I didn’t cry out.

Pain choked me to silence. Why was it when something horrible happened, I could never scream?

Why didn’t I just scream?

“Mom…” I croaked. They’re not dead. They can’t be dead. Forever. 

They spotted me, then beckoned me over with their weak arms. Mom’s sleeping bun shook as she pivoted her head back and forth. “They’re gone, they’re gone . . . they’re gone.”

Then they wrapped their bodies around me so tight I really couldn’t catch my breath, but it didn’t matter, because I didn’t want to breathe either way. I didn’t want to be awake.

I didn’t want to survive.

_____

We had all loved my grandmother, and I don’t think my uncle liked to cry in front of others. Neither did I. But when we did, a storm burst and thundered upon everyone in our immediate circle. 

Finally, he called me up to the podium. 

I stood up—inhale, exhale. As I walked up the carpet steps and stood behind the wood podium, placing my words in front of me, my fingers shook—inhale, exhale. 

Standing in front of a crowd with black dress and grief clear across my face, I couldn’t help but recognize how familiar I was with this feeling. Again.

Ten years ago. I wondered if this would become a pattern—losing someone every ten years, while I continued living and breaking. 

Yes, I have been here before. 

May 6, 2011.

Hundreds gather to remember five children—

I leaned into the microphone, and though my voice cracked when I tried to speak, and my hands shook, I exhaled and thought of them. Inhale, exhale. Their souls appeared next to me, holding my hand and steadying them—my angels.

They told me God saved them that night, and that they would be okay. Now, they were trying to save me. Though I was angry at the world, and at myself, I had already begun to heal my very broken, grieving heart, because they were here with me, even if I could not see them every day like I used to. They were here always, and no matter what. And I would survive this, I would live on, and this pain would not last forever. 

It would just take time. 

The audience waited in the silence for me to speak. My breath echoed in the auditorium. But in the darkness, a white light glowed on me.

My lips parted, and I recited my poem.

“Blossoms on Trees”

Oh those Blossoms,

So delicate with pure innocence.

Splashes of white, pink, yellow, all those joyous colors.

Sun rising to start the day,

And to tell the blossoms spring is rarely gray.

Blossoms on trees,

A child learning to grow,

Guided by the sun along the way,

Through rain and cloud,

And beautiful rainbows.

The tree, carrying the blossoms,

A mother,

Whispering to the blossoms to become a grown fruit.

Blossoms become fruits,

With the same shell,

But their taste,

Sweet or sour, hard or soft.

Oh, how Blossoms grow,

Innocent and sweet.

Turn to grown and unique,

And wait to be picked,

For their time to go.

“Grief”

Textbooks sprawled on the floor and loose-leaf papers painted with scribbles and arrows: failed attempts to make sense of the tremors and aches that coursed through her blood and bones. Nothing in the thin pages of thick textbooks could tell her what poison was in the sharp needle that pierced through her heart, because nothing and no one could ever have predicted such a tragedy. She lay on the cold, wood floor of her bedroom next to that mess and stared at the white clouds on the ceiling. Rain, saturated with salt, fell from the watery clouds of her gray eyes. A picture burned in her sweaty fist. “No no no no no,” escaped in breaths of wind from her lips. Please bring them back, I’ll be better, I swear, just bring them back––bargaining prayers choked any other thoughts. On the floor, she lay. On the floor, ocean waves hovered then crashed down her cheeks over and over and over again until a hand reached out––a hand reached out––a hand reached out and said, “Your family’s dead, but you are––

Alive. As I breathed in and out, still standing behind the podium, the small crowd of my grandmother’s mourners waited for me to speak. I had survived losing nearly everything in my life, and I would survive this too.
With that in mind, I wrote this poem, like I did for my siblings. It seemed appropriate––to share the part of myself that meant the most to me, and to dedicate to the people I loved the most. Writing is how I processed what happened, it was how I grieved, and it was how I would survive. 

The first thing that came to mind when I started to write about my grandmother was a tree. But not just any tree, a weeping willow tree. So, I looked up facts and meaning behind a willow tree and I think it represented my grandmother well. 

The willow tree symbolizes hope, a sense of belonging, and safety. It gives the ability to let go of the pain and suffering to grow new, strong, and bold love. The image of the willow tree is our path to stability, hope, and healing. 

I cleared my throat and, once again, recited a poem, but with the knowing that, though she was not on this earth anymore, I had not lost her forever. I never would.

 “Grandmother Willow”

Through stormy years and sunny days,

her grounded roots birthed a tree

with branches of children

and blossoms of grandchildren

her hair enclosing a space

in which they could weep and laugh and play

and no poisoned rain or violent wind or wild flames

could kill her children on any night or day   

But when the poison reached her roots

and the storms broke within

and the fire scorched her skin

she let her children go

so they could fly and grow

While she lay in her spot,

her years so short,

her lineage flew long

and as her trunk shrank and leaves fell

her branches wept

for their dear grandmother Willow

but she placed pieces of her soul

in these branches that she let go

and her roots decayed

her body grayed

but her children carried her every day

in their hearts and blossoms and leaves 

so her soul would never fade

and her love would forever reign

University of Portland, Oregon. 2022.

It has been eleven, almost twelve years since my siblings passed. About a year since my grandmother passed. I was a writer before that, I was a writer then, and I am a writer now. That is perhaps the only thing about me that has not changed. 

I used to hate coconuts and any coconut flavored foods or even smells to such a degree that I wished I was allergic—that way, I’d at least have a legit excuse to refuse anyone’s homemade coconut-flavored or scented item. But then, somewhere along the way, I started to not mind it too much. Now, I tolerate it. 

I used to think I’d never stay in Portland because of how much I missed the constant Southern California sun and salty sea air; now, I can’t imagine being anywhere else. 

I guess my point is that there are some parts of us that are permanently embedded in us; they are interwoven in our hearts and, if separated from that part, we would not be who we are. I would not be me. And then there are the parts of us that, yes, still have a place in our bodies and on our skin, but they change. They may look different or feel different, but that’s because we go through cycles of shedding skin and sometimes there are parts of our old patterns that linger, and sometimes we never see that pattern again. 

When I was sixteen, I went to Cambridge University for a summer program, and that’s where I met my first love. At sixteen, I thought the best feeling in the world was to hop over the closed botanical gardens after sunset, sneak onto the train to London even though we were told not to, or dance across the empty streets and under the summer stars with a boy I loved.

Then the years passed, and I broke hearts, or they broke mine. Either way, the more years that pass, the more people keep their heart behind a stone wall because, if it breaks anymore, it might not ever be able to heal. 

People forget what it’s like to not be so afraid to love. They also forget their own resiliency. 

I think part of why I decided to teach high school was because they would remind me of this every day, and there’s no way I could ever forget it because, my god, they do not know how to whisper. It is impossible to not hear them, and I could turn up the music as loud as I want or tell them to whisper as many times as I want, and it would still be a near impossible task, but, perhaps, it is because they need to be heard. Or maybe it’s because there’s a message I need to hear. 

When I walk around my classroom, I often think to myself, “Did we really sound like that in high school?” I’ve tried to think back and remember, and I just smile because, yes, we sure did. 

In my senior year of high school, I sat in the back row with my two best friends, Daniel and Elijah, in AP Statistics. As we tried to complete some worksheets to prepare for our next test, Danny, Eli, and I would often say things like that, “Bro, you can’t get a girlfriend because all you talk about is math,” or, “You’re just jealous because you suck at math,” or, even better, “Eli, why are combing your hair?” 

Eli’s response, with a wide grin across his dark skin: “Because I’m a beast, that’s why,” followed by a deep, villain-like laughter that echoed across the classroom. It often caused a ripple of laughter amongst the whole class––even from Mr. Conners, who was a new teacher at Villanova Preparatory School. He graduated from UCSB, otherwise known as the frat-boy party school of Santa Barbara, and used to skateboard. He even showed us a video of him skateboarding back in the day. We all thought he was pretty cool. 

“Don’t be jealous, Alena. My hair is hard to achieve,” Eli said as he combed the afro he was trying to grow before the homecoming dance. 

“Can I borrow that?” I asked, holding my hand out for the comb. 

“Nah, it’s too precious. You’re gonna destroy it.” 

“No no I just wanna see it.” 

“Nahhhhh.” 

“Fine.” So I put my hand on his head and ruffled his hair until it stuck out in all directions. Eli flinched away and pushed me right into Danny. “BRO.” 

My elbow knocked Danny’s water bottle over the table, and the water flooded down his neon green sweatshirt like a waterfall. 

“Oops.” Eli snickered. 

Mr. Conners came to the back of the classroom and shook his head. “C’mon, Eli. Put the comb away. Besides, you’re never gonna outshine my hair,” he said as he rubbed his hand over his bald head. 

Eli pointed at me. “Alena started it––she called me ugly. She speaks blasphemy.” I rolled my eyes. 

“Maybe she wouldn’t say so if you didn’t try to comb your hair in the middle of class.”

“Yeah, Eli.”
“Alena, have you finished the worksheet?” 

I frowned. Mr. Conners knew that Eli and Danny always finished their work before everyone else because they literally did math for fun, but me on the other hand…

“No…” 

Now, I find myself wondering if all of my high school teachers I had before had the same thoughts that I have now about my students. Oh, they are so innocent, funny, hopeful, moody, sad, and awkward, but it also reminds me of how far I’ve traveled. From a thirteen-year-old girl, grieving her family, thinking that the pain was too great to ever heal, to a twenty-four-year old woman who cannot imagine why she ever thought that. 

I never thought I’d stay in Portland, in a rather crooked and creaky old house with four other young teachers. I never thought I’d drive an hour to teach high school English in Salem, and that I would enjoy it. I never thought I would hear a fourteen-year-old boy shout out “rawr” while writing a one-page essay in the middle of a silent classroom. I also doubt that Mr. Conners ever expected he’d have to tell a student to stop combing his hair in the middle of class. 

And, to be brutally honest, I never thought I would survive the insurmountable grief that burdened me for so many years; I never thought my grandmother’s cancer would come back and she’d be gone. I did not think I would survive all of that loss, and somehow still get a degree, a career, life-long friends, and happiness. But, as it turns out, life does not ever go as you predict it will. 

Though I am a writer like I always have been, I’m also a teacher now, and I can only hope to God that the resiliency that got me through my adolescence stays alive through my adulthood, and I can only hope that I do right by these kids.