It’s moving day. My mom picks my sister and I up from school. We take a new route to a new home. We drive down a new street and pull into a new driveway. I figure I’ll get used to it soon enough. I didn’t even have to change schools. The movers are transferring the last couple of boxes from the flashy red truck and through the front door that is twice the size of the one I removed the wreath from last night. I make my way upstairs. The house still smells like an art project, but I guess it’ll be some time before we infuse it with our own scents – the annual apple pie-making night, testing candles and chocolate on Christmas morning, and the aftermath of a neighborhood Fourth of July party. I enter my new room. It’s unsettlingly empty, so I open a box right away. As I’m unloading my various possessions, I come across a small rhinestone tiara. I haven’t worn it in years. It has been a while since I considered myself a princess.

I slip on my pink tulle skirt and carefully place the pointy hat on the top of my head, the strip of elastic hugging my chin. I emerge from my room and make my way down the carpeted stairs. Each step is dainty, perfected from frequent practice. My protégée waits for me at the base of the stairs, eager to begin. I sweep past her and trust that she’ll stumble behind me, wherever I go. I hold my chin as high as I can without compromising my vision of the obstacles ahead. She waddles from side to side, ungainly. Her bare feet smack loudly against the marbled linoleum floor of the foyer. I don’t find this as funny as my parents do, who are watching us from the cozy red chairs in the adjacent sitting room. I stop and face her. She halts obediently and waits for my corrections. I shove her shoulders back and roughly push her chin upwards. She whimpers, but does not object. My parents are ready to intervene if need be. But I continue onward. She stomps louder. I make my way around the stairs and through the living room, past the kitchen, through the dining room, and back to the stairs where we began. My dad has a camera poised in his tan hands. He instructs us to strike our best “princess pose”. Mine is graceful and elegant. I can’t say as much for my sister. My dad chuckles and presses the shutter. The flash goes off, and the moment is documented forever.

Just then, my sister enters my room with a box that was delivered to her room by mistake. She’s far from chubby, and dark mascara frames her large eyes. She gives me a half smile and treads quietly to her room next door. This is the girl that used to leave toothpaste and lotion smeared on our shared bathroom counter. Now, as she retreats to her own bathroom, I imagine it will soon be smeared with foundation. I turn back to the box and dislodge something from between a Bible and a Dr. Seuss book: a small program, the front of it bearing a picture of a small man with a larger-than-life smile. He wears a faded baseball cap, and his eyes sparkle with vitality. I sit down on my bare mattress and remember another chilly day, years ago, before I knew what to think of this program.

They hand us purple leis as we enter the white tent temporarily stuck in the hard ground. I’ve never been up here before. I can see why he liked it. A glint of purple catches my eye near the opposite opening of the tent. I make my way through the throngs of people whose conversations and occasional laughs are too forced. I stumble out of the tent and into the blinding sunlight that contrasts the biting cold and somber temperament of the day. There it is. His helicopter. It’s the must absurd yet beautiful thing – bright purple with a thick yellow stripe running the length of the aircraft. Framed pictures are propped against the landing skids. The same smile that decorated his face when he was a rascally child dominates the pictures of him as an adult. I can’t take my eyes off of it. My smile matches his. It’s no wonder they called it a memorial, and not a funeral.

My dad ducks under the open flaps of the tent, his large frame blocking the rest of the guests from my vision. He tells me to join everyone in the field. I hear the helicopter before I see it. It’s not as magnificent as the purple one I just left, but I can sense it’s going to do more than hover above us like a gargantuan bird. Patriotic music blares from the surrounding speakers just as the first man jumps. Four more follow. The last one unravels an American flag in midair. Then, as if by some magnetic attraction, they grasp hands and form a small circle, their bellies pointing to the crowd craning their necks to see the entirety of the stunt. The man opposite the one with the flag grasps the other end of it just as the chorus begins: “And I gladly stand up next to you / And defend her still today/ ‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land / God bless the USA…” When I squint, I can see one of them open a small container and begin to shake it over the expansive field. This seems to have some sort of effect on everyone, but I don’t understand why. All I know is that the man with the flag is not my uncle. Only a couple of months ago, he played with my sister and I as we explored one of the homemade contraptions he had made for us: wires and bulbs scrambled inside an open Tupperware that lit up when we flipped the switch. I don’t understand that he won’t be at Christmas anymore, and that now when I watch the Bolder Boulder with my family, I won’t see him falling from the great Colorado sky with the red, white and blue on his back.

I rise from the bare mattress, clutching the program. I set it on the clean desktop and continue unpacking. It takes a while to get through the first box. After about an hour or so, I stop to rest. My mom calls me for dinner, but I am not done reflecting. I unpack some more keepsakes: a softball participation trophy, a photo album from Disneyland, and a small Faberge egg given to me by my grandma. My childhood is remembered as I open each box. There was so much I didn’t know, so much I had yet to learn and discover. Everything was so simple. The sun is moving further west, towards the mountains that I will now be able to glance at whenever I please. Light spills through the large window, creating geometric patterns on the unblemished carpet. The only thing absent is a scraggy white dog.

Somehow, when I wake up and don my black and red one-piece and black warm-ups that I hate so much, I know. I don’t know how I know, but I do. Sure enough, I find my mom in the living room, stroking her by the small electric fireplace. Both of their eyes are filled with pain; my mother’s emotional, my dog’s physical. I sit down next to them and gently place my hand on her ribcage. I move my hand slowly down the length of her withering body, the fur still plentiful despite her age. Finally, I reach her rear. She wears a small denim diaper. My mom tried to get her the most “fashionable” one; nothing less for her baby. Her breathing is labored and uneven. I try to swallow the lump in my throat. It stays.

I hear heavy footfalls behind me and am surprised to see my dad still home. After a couple more minutes, my sister joins us. She wears matching warm-ups. My mom begins to explain what will happen. I stare at my dog, pretending to share with her half of each healthy breath I take. The vet comes too soon. She’s kind and gentle. I guess that’s why she was hired in the first place. She outlines the process. Before I can think too much about it, she readies the needle. We are all crying shamelessly. My parents have had her longer than they’ve had my sister and I, and the two of us don’t know a life without her. It takes more than the pre-measured dose to calm this eight-pound soul. She fights to stay with us. Then, it’s done. Just like that. We kiss her one last time before the vet wraps her in a ratty beach towel and takes her away. The image of the pain finally disappearing from her eyes is imprinted in my mind. I have never seen death this close. It scares me. But I still don’t understand.

The last thing in the box is a self-portrait. It is made from glitter and crayons, and looks about as much like me as the pile of empty boxes behind me. I must have been in kindergarten when I made it. I remember my mom hanging it on the fridge, telling me that it was beautiful. Now it sits, slightly crumpled, at the bottom of a cardboard box, seemingly exuding an aura of innocence.