Marie Therese Burke

I am six years old at my birthday party. My theme is The Lion King, all my napkins and plates either have Simba, Nalla, Timon, Pumbaa, or Musfasa spread across the front. My guests are first grade classmates from my school, Edison Elementary, but there three special additional guests who do not go to school there. My best friend Margo is the first, she attends kindergarten at Hawthorn Elementary and Kelly, my cousin, is also in first grade, but goes to school with Margo at Hawthorn. She and I grew up together, I was really sad when she moved from across the street a couple of months ago. The third guest is a weathered and winkled; she has sweetness in her eye and her denture filed smile is pure and genuine. I’m sitting up on her lap, proud that she is my grandma. She smells flowery as I rest my head against her chest and hug her. She has given me a wiffle ball bat and ball for my birthday. I act as if it is the best present I have opened, even though I hate baseball.
I am eight years old Kelly and I stay back from everyone else in your family. I read a poem from pink and green journal. I had gotten it from a trip I took to Libertyville not too long ago; I did not think I would be back so soon, especially not for this. Soon we repeated the poem as a song, we sing to the grave stone. It has intricate carvings of coco-pellies, moons, suns, and designs on it. My uncle, John, took this job as the most important he has ever had. He created this own mother’s head stone. Kelly and I do not cry because we know she is happy wherever she is and we know she would want us to enjoy life, celebrate her life instead of wallowing in her death.
I am nineteen years old sitting in a brightly lit with gold Catholic Church, it is at a missionary in Los Angeles. The pews we sit in are old and weathered, but outside it is warm for a December day. A tall thin women follows girls in gold, she is in a long flowing white dress. Her name is Maureen, my cousin. She is the first of the cousins to get married. The entire family is there to watch this monumental event take place; it is the first time the entire family has been “all” together. We all think about what really brought us here, and we know our grandma, mom, mother-in-law was the one. She brought us together with her love and with what she distilled in all of us. It has been eleven years, longer than I knew her, but on this day that all of us together I miss her. I know she is proud and smiling down on us.