My aunt is 40 years old and she was coloring with crayons on the bathroom floor after a bad spell. We kept them in the cabinet under the sink so she could pull them out to calm her down, or pull her out, of the dream she was having over glazed eyes that weren't sleeping. She would talk to us about silly things that happened to her or how she met her husband after the war in his pretty, neat, and navy blue military jacket.
She really met my uncle on the train to Chicago in 1977, but we don't tell her that because it doesn't make a difference and it won't make her feel any better. The truth never really does that I've learned.
That's the thing about the rest of your life. When you're sixteen and beautiful with a cute brown bob and eyes to match you think you can do anything and when you picture the rest of your life it doesn't include lying in a bath robe talking to your niece about something you never did or never had with spit on your chin and hands that need washed coloring a picture in a book meant for kids.
You never thought you'd be stuck being a kid sometimes. Out of control, shaky, twisted and a little bit beautiful through things. You never thought you'd be missing some parts, or you'd be spacey or empty in bad, bad moments like this.
But that's how it is and that's how it was for my aunt as she tried to formulate her thoughts into something she was dying and dying to tell me.
I didn't know what she wanted or how to fix all the things I didn't quite understand were happening. All I know is that she is a child and children need attention, to be played with, and to be loved. So I picked up a crayon and starting coloring around the edges she had missed trying to fill her in.