Oh My Sweet Summer Song.

Gasping for air in an ocean of tears, is one of the most devastating feelings. Your body knows you’re close to letting go, but just refuses to give up. It’s heartbreaking. It brings me back to the memory of seeing a puppy limp and drag itself across the highway even with its legs broken, too far broken to be fixed—I could relate—The puppy still couldn’t give up. My mom just drove by. When I asked her why we couldn’t help the puppy she’d say, 

“Some hardships are to be faced alone and out of the way of complications.” 

I didn’t believe it. I cried about it later on during the car ride, Mama told me ‘Heaven has a place for him.’ I wondered if the same thing was true for Grandma. The thought still makes me weep and howl, then gasp. The devastation sets in that this ocean of my own tears might just kill me. 

Each tear is like a drop of salty ocean water. It gets in my mouth and tastes even saltier than salt itself. Mama used to protect me, and wash my mouth out when the ocean waves tried to drown my little lungs with saltier than salt water. 

Engulfed, by my tears, drowning, no one around to save me, no Mama, no friends, I wish I hadn’t grown up so fast. Mama used to say it too, just in her own ways.. 

“You sprouted up faster than my tomatoes, My summer song.”

“I don’t like this new found tone, young lady.”

“I don’t know you anymore, What happened to My Beautiful Summer Song?”

All things Mama said. All got more salty than the saltier, salty, salt water, she used to protect me from. 

Now she’s gone. 

Now I’ll be gone. 

Because her little Summer Song became too out of tune to keep listening to. 

I wish I could hear what she heard. I wish I hadn’t grown up so fast. I wish I was drowning into that Sweet Summer Song she always spoke of, instead of drowning in the devastation of that Sweet Summer Song because it was almost completely gone. 

Her arms cover me, completely. I’m so small and sweet. Grandma said I gave her toothaches with every hug. Sweet Summer Song, crying in Mama’s arms once again, it’s felt so long since I’d done this. Her words welcome my soul in the softest warmth and sweetest melody, And I can almost smell Grandma’s baking in the distance of this newly found place, that suddenly, I couldn’t name, I was still choking, on new tears, on newfound touch, on not-so new, smells of Grandma and Mama in the kitchen.

“Oh My Sweet Summer Song.. What happened to you? You’re not supposed to be here this soon.” 

“I don’t know, Mama. I don’t know.” 

I didn’t know, so much, I don’t want to know, I wish I didn’t know, drowning in one’s own tears, could be so literal. What I did know, is that for once in the whole 10 years of life. Mama, was wrong. I was exactly where I needed to be. In Mama’s arms, singing her my sweet summer song. While saltier than salt water trickling down the soft skin of my cheeks, in the mists of a world nobody told me was hiding here for me and mama.