First Goodbye by Ron Gibson, Jr.

​First Goodbye 
　
The first time I said goodbye it was early morning. My family was gathered in the living room of my grandfather's house. Usually the TV was on (ostensibly another member of the family), but not on that day. On that day, as my mother held me on her lap, everyone sat in silence while my grandmother cried. My aunts, uncles and parents might have, as well, but it was hard to tell with my grandmother carrying on. Ever since receiving news of her mother's death, she had been crying nonstop. A self-destructive, self-sabotaging cry. Her eyes had already puffed up so badly they were nearly shut tight, like Rocky Balboa after fifteen rounds with Apollo Creed, and the funeral arrangements had not even been mentioned yet.

With the curtains drawn so that nosy neighbors could not witness our grieving, my grandmother tried to dial a phone number. I remember the way she squinted through her raccoon eyes in the dim light at her small phone book, trying to make out the number and spinning the rotary dial correctly with her shaky finger.

We all sat and listened to whatever she was saying to whoever she was saying it to. This was a regular practice even under normal conditions. There were no secrets amongst us. Everything was aired out, everything was free to be inspected. Or, at least that's what submitting to this communal eavesdropping seemed to say. In reality recreational drug use was fast becoming addictions, sibling rivalries led to infighting. Backbiting grew so personal and vicious that it was hard to believe the combatants actually shared blood.

Around five years old, I was supposed to be too young to notice any of this, but I heard the lowered voices when one left the room and became the subject of gossip, and I felt the tension when that family member returned.

But noticing these things did not make me smart. For, when my grandmother placed the telephone receiver back on the cradle, there was a lull, as if everyone was sort of growing used to the idea of my great-grandmother having passed on. Everyone, that is, except my grandmother. But, as if going out of my way to prove how dense I was, I got off my mother's lap and walked over to the sofa where my grandmother was crying.

I remember standing in front of her --- this woman that dearly loved her mother; who did not want to imagine a world without her living across town, a phone call away from having coffee together, to have someone to talk to, to share the struggles of motherhood with --- and I kept staring at her swollen eyes and tears, until she noticed me and leaned forward.

"What is it, honey?"

"Why are you crying?"

The look she gave me still causes my stomach to bottom out, still makes me wonder what I thought we had been doing all that morning.

I don't know, but I do know that I will never forget the way my grandmother said, "My mother is dead," and began crying harder than ever.

Instead of saying, "I'm sorry," all I could say was, "Oh," walking back to my mother's lap, face burning with guilt, not knowing if I had missed some vital clue as I slept in the car that morning or if I was just the dumbest kid in the world.



Bio: Ron Gibson, Jr. has previously appeared in Identity Theory, Midwestern Gothic, Cold Creek Review, L'Ephemere Review, Moonsick Magazine, Fiction Pool, Real Story UK, Easy Street Magazine, Rabble Lit, (b)oink, Mannequin Haus, Stockholm Review of Literature, Cheap Pop, New South Journal, Jellyfish Review, Whiskeypaper, Unbroken Journal, Crack the Spine, Gone Lawn, etc... forthcoming at Occulum, Lost Balloon & Ellipsis Zine. @sirabsurd